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What happens when signal is lost and there is strong wind

latra

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Hello everyone,

It is my first post on the forum, and DJI mini 2 is my first real drone, and also I received it this week, so I'm not really familiar with the drone yet.

I made this question because yesterday I was doing a test flight and at some point of the flight I lost the signal with the drone, but a few seconds ago I recovered it and I noticed that the drone was coming back. Later I saw a message indicating that because of the strong wind the drone was not able to return to the original point on its own. Of course, I realized the importance of checking the weather status, and I shouldn't use the drone with strong wind in the first place (but “on the ground” I didn’t notice the status. I just downloaded an app to check it in a better way).

So what could happen if I lost the signal and there was a strong wind at the same time? Bye bye drone? Or it will try to stay on the same point until the signal gets back or the battery goes low?
 
It should attempt a RTH (if RTH is your Loss Signal Setting). If not enough battery to get to home point it will continue until Critically Low Battery status and then attempt to land at that point.

When doing any longer flights ALWAYS depart INTO the wind so you can fly WITH the wind back home. The lighter the aircraft the bigger the issue is and the Mini is LIGHTTTTTTT!!
 
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If the drone initiates RTH then this will happen in Normal Mode - not Sports Mode, so the drone will try to get back to the Home Point at the most efficient speed - for my Mavic 2 Pro that would be around 25-28MPH as for the Mini 2 if it by bad luck happens to trying to RTH into the wind i.e. Head Wind then there could be problems, depending on RTH set height - the higher up then the worse the wind will be, it may even be carried backwards by the wind until it eventually gets to critical battery voltage & then it will auto land where ever that may be. If you manage to get signal back during this, then the only way to get the drone back safely is to enter Sports Mode to fight the head wind & hope you don't lose signal again or the same scenario will entail, the key is NEVER to go too far out with the wind behind you or you have the battle of getting the drone back as above.
 
The "failsafe" (loss of connection ) RTH is outlined on page 15 of the manual
English =
Spanish = well that's surprising, they don't list one.

Some of what happens depends on the RTH height that you have set in the App. If the drone is below that height it will ultimately climb to that height and then try to get home. If the drone is above the RTH height it WILL NOT descend to the RTH height but rather it will simply try to return home at the current height.

NOTE the failsafe RTH starts the the drone retracing the last 50m of its flight path, that likely included any height changes made during those 50m.

If the winds are too strong then it will be blown downwind until the battery is near exhaustion, at which point the drone will start a controlled descent and land. An unnecessarily high RTH has the risk of the drone climbing into winds that are too strong for it.

NOTE although the App gives the warning you saw it does not necessarily mean that the drone CAN NOT return against those head winds, wind speeds ten to vary a bit and I have seen my Mavic Mini and perhaps my Mini 2 make headway for home in an RTH whist that warning was active. It is sensible to heed the warning and if possible reduce the drones height but in a loss of connection you are unable to do that so you are at the mercy of the winds and either the drone's current height or the RTH height.


EDIT 3 posts almost simultaneously lol
Big Al makes a good point about the chosen action in a loss of connection situation. The alternatives are, I think, hover and land,
Hover would ultimately end in a low battery RTH.
Land is a bit more complicated, the drone make reject the landing sight and hover which in turn will lead to a low battery RTH.
 
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Welcome to the forum from the land of Oz. The mm2 is a great little a/c, if you loose signal it should return to home. The little fellow will struggle in strong wind, as you fly it more you will get to know it’s boundaries.
Regards
 
@latra on the display you will notice that the drones speed will be showing a reading
in the event of a RTH keep an eye on that speed ,if it drops to a very low reading it means that the drone is really struggling to maintain headway into the wind ,one way to reduce this effect is to reduce altitude if at all possible, as the winds tend to be stronger the higher you go
this is not always true in every situation ,if you are flying in mountainous places its possible to get winds going at different speeds and direction due to the different height changes of the terrain
so its possible that in those situations the wind can be stronger closer to the ground ,if at any time ,as others have said you realise the drone is not going to get home ,cancel RTH reduce height if possible and fly home manually ,and as a last resort look for a safe spot to land before the battery gets critically low ,its also important to do a risk assessment with regards to the wind speed and direction before you take off ,and if you feel it is unsafe to do the flight for what ever reason ,dont come back on another day if you can
 
And of course someone has to make the obligatory VLOS comment, so I'll do it... The Mini 2 is pretty small. If you lost a signal while keeping the Mini 2 in sight something is wrong, e.g. some kind of interference, or a problem with the drone or controller.
 
... The lighter the aircraft the bigger the issue is and the Mini is LIGHTTTTTTT!!
That's a common misconception, but the real issue is thrust versus drag, not weight. If you have a Mini and a Mavic Pro sitting on a table and it gets windy, the Mini will be blown off first, but that's only because its lower weight means less friction with the table, and friction is the only thing holding it in place. In the air, that's irrelevant because the only thing that can keep the drone from being blown away is applying thrust at least equal to the drag. Weight is only indirectly correlated because lighter drones generally (but not necessarily) have less powerful motors, but racing drones lighter than the Mini can easily handle wind that will take a Mini away because their power-to-drag ratio is much higher. The Mini 2 has a little better wind resistance than the Mini 1, even though it's lighter, because it has somewhat more powerful motors. The engineering trade-off is that more powerful motors have better wind resistance but shorter flight times, all else being equal, but the Mini 2 also has better batteries.
 
That's a common misconception, but the real issue is thrust versus drag, not weight. If you have a Mini and a Mavic Pro sitting on a table and it gets windy, the Mini will be blown off first, but that's only because its lower weight means less friction with the table, and friction is the only thing holding it in place. In the air, that's irrelevant because the only thing that can keep the drone from being blown away is applying thrust at least equal to the drag. Weight is only indirectly correlated because lighter drones generally (but not necessarily) have less powerful motors, but racing drones lighter than the Mini can easily handle wind that will take a Mini away because their power-to-drag ratio is much higher. The Mini 2 has a little better wind resistance than the Mini 1, even though it's lighter, because it has somewhat more powerful motors. The engineering trade-off is that more powerful motors have better wind resistance but shorter flight times, all else being equal, but the Mini 2 also has better batteries.


While the actual weight IS relevant (It's been hashed out several times on this forum and others and you're not taking Inertia into account . . . ) what's key to understand is that DJI (and most other UAS manufacturers) build their propulsion systems on consumer drones to closely match the aircraft's flying weight and leave very minimal room for "reserve power". The lighter aircraft will most likely have much less system power/thrust to counteract higher winds and the DJI Mini series is well documented as not able to handle winds well at all.
 
While the actual weight IS relevant (It's been hashed out several times on this forum and others and you're not taking Inertia into account . . . ) what's key to understand is that DJI (and most other UAS manufacturers) build their propulsion systems on consumer drones to closely match the aircraft's flying weight and leave very minimal room for "reserve power". The lighter aircraft will most likely have much less system power/thrust to counteract higher winds and the DJI Mini series is well documented as not able to handle winds well at all.
I'm ignoring inertia because it only affects how a drone reacts to gusty wind, not to how much steady headwind it can handle. Yes, if a Mini and a MP are both hit with a sudden wind, the Mini will be blown farther downwind than the MP before it can react because it has less inertia. But then, whether it can fly faster than that wind is all about thrust versus drag, not inertia. Yes, it's been discussed many times, but in this thread (I should have made my point clearer), your statement, "The lighter the aircraft the bigger the issue," is not true in the case of the Mini 2 versus the Mini 1 in particular.
 
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