Tolerance to wind

Robert Mitchell · Jun 6, 2017

KDog said:
My understanding of the control curves we edit to smooth responsiveness is only dampening input responsiveness - not changing the actual autostabilisation characteristics of the IMU or control computers. The motors should remain minutely responsive to external factors regardless of how sluggish these input settings are.

That's largely irrelevant of course when the pitch and roll of the aircraft is outside of the tolerance of the gimbal. I take all the points re: turbulence and its effect on what is a very small aircraft, and also the points on when and when not to fly (at ground level the wind was pretty placid as it were) and the issue wasn't wind speed but wind variance.

My question remains not so much about my ability to control it, but for the flight control systems to handle pitch and roll outside of gimbal tolerance and recover after the same.

Maybe a clearer question might be "how many degrees can a MP pitch and roll before the flight control systems lose control and it's in a death spiral?"

I don't think it would ever enter into a "death spiral" even if blown completely over. Just my opinion here but based on experience, I believe there is no angle at which the gyros could not detect and recover from an upset given enough altitude.

I've had cheap quads which would completely recover, even if upside down, when the power was restored if, for example, in a drop. And they do it very quickly.

I'm pretty sure the Mavics flight control and stability systems far exceed these.

flyNfrank · Jun 6, 2017

flyNfrank said:
The way the propulsion system has been programmed, 98% of the focus has been placed on the aircraft's video and picture taking ergonomics. I have spent hour upon hour looking over internal flight logs from the Mavic. There is absolutely nothing that favors the weather conditions, and especially the wind. The amount of current usable volts with in the battery, is what dictates how the mavic responds to commands.

I forgot to add that the flight pitch and roll limits are around -35 and +35.

Robert Mitchell · Jun 6, 2017

flyNfrank said:
I forgot to add that the flight pitch and roll limits are around -35 and +35.

What does that mean exactly? It sounds as if you are saying that the Mavic would be in trouble if it exceeds 35 degrees but my $49 Syma can quickly recover from inverted flight.

What am I missing here?

TTFullTimer · Jun 6, 2017

Robert Mitchell said:
What does that mean exactly? It sounds as if you are saying that the Mavic would be in trouble if it exceeds 35 degrees but my $49 Syma can quickly recover from inverted flight.

What am I missing here?

We have no idea what the flight algorithms are in either of those. The Syma is made for flips, the Mavic is not. What happens if it is inverted? I am not trying it. How about you?

Robert Mitchell · Jun 6, 2017

TTFullTimer said:
We have no idea what the flight algorithms are in either of those. The Syma is made for flips, the Mavic is not. What happens if it is inverted? I am not trying it. How about you?

Good point.

Bottom line for me is, I guess it would still take a h*** of a vertical wind motion to put the Mavic in a non recoverable position.

Unfortunately for the OP, I still don't think we have a definitive answer.

KDog · Jun 6, 2017

Robert Mitchell said:
Good point.

Bottom line for me is, I guess it would still take a h*** of a vertical wind motion to put the Mavic in a non recoverable position.

Unfortunately for the OP, I still don't think we have a definitive answer.

I wonder if the +/-35 degrees limit is related to the point at which the gimbal runs out of compensatory travel (which seems correct given my latest experience), or whether it's primarily related to the flight control system tolerance (with a substantial buffer no doubt given it's aviation related), or if one leads the other. Again this is just conjecture.

I'm certainly in no hurry to find out what limits I can fly to I guess, I'm just curious about whether I nearly ate it, or if I was actually quite safe even though it was quite off-putting.

There is a YouTube vid where that cat in the US deliberately kills the power and then restarts and recovers without too much fanfare, but that was starting straight and level, so I wonder if the results would be the same in windy conditions.

Certainly regardless of flight control algorithms, if it ends up upside down, there's probably no recovering from that, but it would seem silly not to have it try to recover from any situation. Logically for any angle less than 90 degrees, providing full power to one side relatively and no power to another should improve the angle at least. It just comes down to whether the motors would have enough power to stabilise quicker than the aircraft is changing attitude in the conditions, and I suspect the power to weight ratio of the MP (compared to some of those racing quad copters) would mean a relatively long stabilisation period.

Interesting discussion though, if only academic...

FatherXmas · Jun 6, 2017

KDog said:
Tough break. Did you get any 'warning signs' of instability prior to the gust, or was just over and done with?

Nope, not a single clue, one second it was directly above where I took off, the next it was falling out of the tree. I was less than 50 feet from the bluff, just thankful it hit the tree instead of falling a thousand feet into the Tennessee River.

flyNfrank · Jun 6, 2017

Robert Mitchell said:
What does that mean exactly? It sounds as if you are saying that the Mavic would be in trouble if it exceeds 35 degrees but my $49 Syma can quickly recover from inverted flight.

What am I missing here?

What the post meant was these are what is a max amount programmed in the firmware.

As for recovering, its the altitude that will determine if the aircraft can recover. I had a P2P (which is no mavic by any means, and especially in the technical aspect) drop from a hover at 200ft altitude. As it fell my reaction was to hold up on both sticks. And at 20ft from the ground it was able to recover. I have it on video if anyone wants to see it. I added slow motion to make it more dramatic.

With the mavic, the worse thing you could do is ignore the voltage display while flying full throttle. The display will show in colors. Do not allow it to go into the red!

SkunkWerx's · Jun 6, 2017

Robert Mitchell said:
I don't think it would ever enter into a "death spiral" even if blown completely over. Just my opinion here but based on experience, I believe there is no angle at which the gyros could not detect and recover from an upset given enough altitude.

I've had cheap quads which would completely recover, even if upside down, when the power was restored if, for example, in a drop. And they do it very quickly.

I'm pretty sure the Mavics flight control and stability systems far exceed these.

What you are saying is true .... there is youtube video's of the Mavic tumbling in the air still with power to it and recovering .
One video that I believe the name of is Mavic Crashes it shows a Mavic flying in a yard about eight feet off the ground , it hit a tree branch and flipped twice on it's way to the ground but never hit --- It recovered

KDog · Jun 6, 2017

flyNfrank said:
What the post meant was these are what is a max amount programmed in the firmware.

As for recovering, its the altitude that will determine if the aircraft can recover. I had a P2P (which is no mavic by any means, and especially in the technical aspect) drop from a hover at 200ft altitude. As it fell my reaction was to hold up on both sticks. And at 20ft from the ground it was able to recover. I have it on video if anyone wants to see it. I added slow motion to make it more dramatic.

With the mavic, the worse thing you could do is ignore the voltage display while flying full throttle. The display will show in colors. Do not allow it to go into the red!

Would be keen to see the footage!

SkunkWerx's · Jun 6, 2017

flyNfrank said:
What the post meant was these are what is a max amount programmed in the firmware.

As for recovering, its the altitude that will determine if the aircraft can recover. I had a P2P (which is no mavic by any means, and especially in the technical aspect) drop from a hover at 200ft altitude. As it fell my reaction was to hold up on both sticks. And at 20ft from the ground it was able to recover. I have it on video if anyone wants to see it. I added slow motion to make it more dramatic.

With the mavic, the worse thing you could do is ignore the voltage display while flying full throttle. The display will show in colors. Do not allow it to go into the red!

I under stand that these are the max programed settings I was going to post that too but didn't sorry
I'm going to try and find this video that I'm talking about .... I understand altitude is a factor for recovery this is why I mentioned the youtube video I seen I was amazed at how fast it did recover from just 8 feet
Cheer's

Lapeer20m · Jun 6, 2017

I've flown in serious winds far exceeding the mavics rating without issue. I've had to fly in sport mode more than once because mavic would not make any forward progress in p mode.

AWAYS amazed at how smooth the video is.

SkunkWerx's · Jun 6, 2017

KDog said:
Would be keen to see the footage!

Found it, here ya go KDog it starts at 2:05
There are some other cool recoveries on it too !!
FlySafe -FlyFree

Logger · Jun 6, 2017

flyNfrank said:
What the post meant was these are what is a max amount programmed in the firmware.

Unless it is documented, you do not actually know what is programmed in the firmware. Really, how can you possibly know that 98% (Not 73% not 85% but specifically 98%) of the flight control software code is focused on video or imagery. Unless you wrote it. You can only surmise. Just like the rest of us

I surmise that when the Mavic finds itself displaced outside of its normal flight envelope, it attempts to recover, thats' all. Likely prior to this the gimbal will have run out of authority the camera will not be able to stay horizon aligned.

No reason to think the Mavic would not do as well or better than this Phantom though. It readily recovers from inverted when released a mere 5 or 6 feet above the deck. No need to drop it off a tower at 200' or worry about voltage display red herrings.

SkunkWerx's · Jun 6, 2017

Lapeer20m said:
I've flown in serious windsfar exceeding the mavics rating without issue. I've had to fly in sport mode more than once because mavic would not make any forward progress in p mode.

AWAYS amazed at how smooth the video is.

Many people don't know to switch to Sports Mode in serious winds and actually think they lost control of the AC and crash

SkunkWerx's · Jun 6, 2017

Logger said:
Unless it is documented, you do not actually know what is programmed in the firmware. Really, how can you possibly know that 98% (Not 73% not 85% but specifically 98%) of the flight control software code is focused on video or imagery. Unless you wrote it. You can only surmise. Just like the rest of us

I surmise that when the Mavic finds itself displaced outside of its normal flight envelope, it attempts to recover, thats' all. Likely prior to this the gimbal will have run out of authority the camera will not be able to stay horizon aligned.

No reason to think the Mavic would not do as well or better than this Phantom though. It readily recovers from inverted when released a mere 5 or 6 feet above the deck. No need to drop it off a tower at 200' or worry about voltage display red herrings.

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Interesting , I never had an experience with the Mavic tumbling down out of the sky , I think if this was to happen and you still have power the best thing to do is to let the sticks center themselves on the controller My theory is that if you continue to make more control inputs the less chance you have to recover ...... while tumbling more control inputs will cause the flight guidance system to become more confused
leading to a crash ....... something to think about ----- This is just my opinion

KDog · Jun 6, 2017

Logger said:
Unless it is documented, you do not actually know what is programmed in the firmware. Really, how can you possibly know that 98% (Not 73% not 85% but specifically 98%) of the flight control software code is focused on video or imagery. Unless you wrote it. You can only surmise. Just like the rest of us

I surmise that when the Mavic finds itself displaced outside of its normal flight envelope, it attempts to recover, thats' all. Likely prior to this the gimbal will have run out of authority the camera will not be able to stay horizon aligned.

No reason to think the Mavic would not do as well or better than this Phantom though. It readily recovers from inverted when released a mere 5 or 6 feet above the deck. No need to drop it off a tower at 200' or worry about voltage display red herrings.

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

I think this video is the most complete answer to my question so far. Would be keen to see similar tests on MP.

So the answer is - I was likely still a long way from danger given altitude and far more conservative attitude than shown in this video.

I've been checking out a few YouTube vids since and it seems like the most unreliable part of the Mavic is at the end of the sticks!!! (Although I'm sure a few in here will disagree [emoji51])

*Que cavalier flying leading to a crash* (joke btw...)

Thanks.

K.

KDog · Jun 6, 2017

SkunkWerx's said:
Many people don't know to switch to Sports Mode in serious winds and actually think they lost control of the AC and crash

I take your point more generally, but to be clear, this wasn't an issue with wind speed, it was an issue with wind variability. The gust was still inside the MP wind speed envelope, but there was a large increase in wind speed over a very short period of time, messing with the aircraft stabilisation systems. It technically reacted as it should have.

Let's keep the discussion on topic.

SkunkWerx's · Jun 6, 2017

KDog said:
I think this video is the most complete answer to my question so far. Would be keen to see similar tests on MP.

So the answer is - I was likely still a long way from danger given altitude and far more conservative attitude than shown in this video.

I've been checking out a few YouTube vids since and it seems like the most unreliable part of the Mavic is at the end of the sticks!!! (Although I'm sure a few in here will disagree [emoji51])

*Que cavalier flying leading to a crash* (joke btw...)

Thanks.

K.

most unreliable part of the Mavic is at the end of the sticks!!! lollll I like that ........ Still laughing
I mentioned the wind speed and control incase others read this thread and would know what to do like you said you switched to Sports Mode ..... Glad logger's the video helped Thumbswayup