Video of Mavic Wind Limits! >40mph or 18m/s

[Cookedinlh]

Today 8 mar 2017, Sarnia ON Canada. DJI Mavic Pro . . fighting hard to stay on place with 30mph winds gusting 55. Mavic Pro came through and managed to not get blown away in the gusts buy dropping down under 50ft. This was only possible in SPORT mode. . . and near full deflection of controls a lot of the time. Now a bit worried about all the dust picked up by the motors and internals. That's about a windy as the Mavic can handle. . .. It's good to know your limits.
This is raw 1920x1080 video unedited. You can see me fighting to keep it over the parking lot. The gimble is doing it's job for the most part but most of this was with full stick deflection in sport mode just to keep it in place. Max altitude as about 80-100ft. It's the first video on the pace just below the still photos on my home page .

 

[phxphotog]

I'm kind of wondering, why? I wouldn't risk my $1000 investment.

 

[Cookedinlh]

I'm kind of wondering, why? I wouldn't risk my $1000 investment.

I work commercially so I specifically went to test the flight limits. I've flown in 30+ but not 40mph so I was careful about how high and local obstacles. Yes it was a risk but my flying skills and confidence in the equipment was enhanced considerably . . for me the investment was about $1750 Canadian. The value I got from the experience is hard to quantify.

 

[Robbyg]

Cool Video. Thanks for running those tests.

Rob

 

[Mavicflyer519]

I personally appreciate you taking the risk and showing us what the MP is capable of doing as no one really knows unless these tests are done. Thanks again cool video.

 

[CyberNate]

Excellent test! Thank you!

 

[domination]

Clap, clap - yes - balls of steel for pushing the limits. Funny thing is that I'll check winds by looking at trees and foliage movement here in Florida. Those trees have no leaves, hence, very difficult to get an idea of wind speed. Then I saw the banner on the fence - WOW! You got balls of steel - hats off! Bravo

 

[Cookedinlh]

Clap, clap - yes - balls of steel for pushing the limits. Funny thing is that I'll check winds by looking at trees and foliage movement here in Florida. Those trees have no leaves, hence, very difficult to get an idea of wind speed. Then I saw the banner on the fence - WOW! You got balls of steel - hats off! Bravo

Thanks for that . . but it's not "ball of steel" really . . just some careful planning and risk assessment. I decided to fly because the wind was around 40+ because I knew the machine can fly at 40mph in SPORT. . . . but I did not just take off into that shot. I took off at 5-10 ft or so and flew for almost 10 min before a few attempts at altitude. I could see the wind was exceeding the limits ie 50+gusts for several seconds about every5 min or so with a lull around 40mph in between. So after getting comfortable at the edge of 40mph. I waited and for a major gust to pass and took it up to 80-100ft and you can see it being blown away almost immediately. I realized that any higher would jeopardize the flight and RTH was not going to be a safe move because it would immediately climb and get blown further away and be unrecoverable. The rest of the flight was safe and manageable until landing and it tipped momentarily on touchdown . . not blade contact but it acquired a bunch of dust and sand in the rear motors . . .Still checking that out. . . all you can do is blow them clear and no way to get inside and see for sure. . . considering using my dji care and get it properly cleaned before flying again

 

[ColoradoSteve]

haha - we actually had similar winds earlier this week and I thought about doing a test like that..

then, I thought, "but...but...but...why?"

So I didn't. ;-)

Thanks for the test, though. We now know what it can handle. I've flown in some pretty windy weather, and landing is really the only time I'm nervous.

 

[Hightower]

Today 8 mar 2017, Sarnia ON Canada. DJI Mavic Pro . . fighting hard to stay on place with 30mph winds gusting 55. Mavic Pro came through and managed to not get blown away in the gusts buy dropping down under 50ft. This was only possible in SPORT mode. . . and near full deflection of controls a lot of the time. Now a bit worried about all the dust picked up by the motors and internals. That's about a windy as the Mavic can handle. . .. It's good to know your limits.
This is raw 1920x1080 video unedited. You can see me fighting to keep it over the parking lot. The gimble is doing it's job for the most part but most of this was with full stick deflection in sport mode just to keep it in place. Max altitude as about 80-100ft. It's the first video on the pace just below the still photos on my home page .

This is awesome, great work! I did a similar test, but not at those wind speeds. Great info to know. Did you happen to see what rpm the motors were running during a hover? I've been using motor RPM lately to see how much the drone is actually working rather than relaying on just the high wind warning. Also watching to see how stable the altitude and distance numbers are. When it gets real windy the will move 5-10 feet when hovering; when its not windy they will hold dead on.

 

[armoredsaint]

nice test, it was windy here yesterday with high wind warnings up to 50 mph, i only took it 10 feet up and it did pitch downward when i went forward or backwards- i didn't have the balls to go higher or risk losing my toy

 

[Cookedinlh]

This is awesome, great work! I did a similar test, but not at those wind speeds. Great info to know. Did you happen to see what rpm the motors were running during a hover? I've been using motor RPM lately to see how much the drone is actually working rather than relaying on just the high wind warning. Also watching to see how stable the altitude and distance numbers are. When it gets real windy the will move 5-10 feet when hovering; when its not windy they will hold dead on.

I did not have time or think to watch rpm as I was concentrating on watching it's behaviour visually. . . with the occasional look at the screen to see if I was getting the photos and video at all. . . I reviewed the flight parameters on DJIGo4 after and then again through Healthy Drones . . I battery ,GPS,Compass and AMPS stayed nominal except for LEFT/RIGHT rudder response. I kept it withing 10-20 ft and 12-15ft ALT for the first 5 min before venturing to max ALT of 96ft for that video. I stayed close as possible to it all the time (<20-25ft ) even though it was up to 150ft from HOME point. . . I did not dare try RTH since it would have gone straight up and lost if I did. . . so it behaved very predictable throughout the flight . . . which was really most of the point of doing this . . to ensure it did not exhibit unpredictable behaviour just due to wind.

Before I launched I had already accepted that I may have to kill it in the air if it misbehaved or just wandered off . . so I was glad for that . . . the only anomaly as I said was rudder response which I think was "on the edge" of it's ability. See below. Purple is nearly 1sec response time . anything over .3 to .4 is slow (orange) . you can see it got there several times

 

[Cookedinlh]

Followup . . . I just sent the Mav back to dji for servicing. I blew out a bit of sand from the rear 2 motors after landing partly in sand next to the hard surface I was aiming at. It dug in the back right arm a bit but did not seem to harm the rotor. After air blow BackRight still was "grinding" like sand in it. No way to service any further so back it goes. Will update as we go.

 

[Cookedinlh]

Followup #2 - I received the Mavic back . . . well I got "a" Mavic back yesterday. Serial number is different. and the firmware is out of date so after upgrading and a full test flight in open spaces it seems fine and performed well. Cost with DJI Care was $79 USD including shipping both ways . . so I guess that's good. No explanation as to what they found or what was damaged if anything more than one motor got sand in it. . . I've left messages . . nothing yet.

 

[Boog0822]

Lesson learned. Don't fly in a dust storm. Not smart.

 

[Cookedinlh]

Lesson learned. Don't fly in a dust storm. Not smart.

Yes actually it was smart based on what I learned. . . even at $79 . . . I was not flying IN the dust you see there but off to the side and VERY carefully . . . off to the right was open water and the heavy dust was blowing well off to the left. I learned the TRUE limits of the Mavic and it's an amazing product. 30mph winds even gusty ones are acceptable if you plan properly and consider local obstacles, wind direction and only fly upwind. . . . and specifically landing is a critical issue (wind or not) if there is dusty or sandy surfaces. That's another reason I hand catch more than not . . wet grass, beach, puddles all contribute. Hand catching in gusty wind though is not safe really so I had planned to land in an open piece of pavement . . .but the touchdown was so rocky it skipped as I tried to touch down and kicked up some sand next to the edge of sidewalk.
LESSON LEARNED: MAVIC Performance is an amazing machine . . . but you can't plan to hand catch safely in gusty winds . . so put it down in the grass, even if it's long and even if there is a smoother flat hard surface nearby.

 

[ArranEye]

I took my MP out in wind today, also to familiarise myself with its capability and limits. Mine began to drift when the wind went above 27mph (as calculated by the excellent Airdata analysis) - around the same point that you need to engage Sport mode to fly against it. However, I was mightily impressed with how well the MP handled and the video remained rock solid, even though the bird was tossing around.
It can be quite difficult to estimate wind strength, but as a very rough indication, my Harris Tweed cap blew off my head right on the limit for drift! (I guess a baseball cap would take a stronger gust though!)
As proved above, you CAN fly in stronger wind, but for me, 25mph will be my new limit, and I will hopefully lose neither my cap, nor my MP!

 

[Cookedinlh]

I took my MP out in wind today, also to familiarise myself with its capability and limits. Mine began to drift when the wind went above 27mph (as calculated by the excellent Airdata analysis) - around the same point that you need to engage Sport mode to fly against it. However, I was mightily impressed with how well the MP handled and the video remained rock solid, even though the bird was tossing around.
It can be quite difficult to estimate wind strength, but as a very rough indication, my Harris Tweed cap blew off my head right on the limit for drift! (I guess a baseball cap would take a stronger gust though!)
As proved above, you CAN fly in stronger wind, but for me, 25mph will be my new limit, and I will hopefully lose neither my cap, nor my MP!

Good work Arraneye . . got to keep pressing the limits or you never know how well you will handle an emergency . . the trick is NOT to create an emergency in the first place.Thanks for the additional validation of the mighty Mav