Wind Speed

[Beachboy]

Just wondering how many of you have or use a Anemometer for wind speed. When you go out to fly

 

[Mossiback]

Wind speed at ground level is of little use. I use trees and clouds as my guide.

EDIT: If I get a high wind warning on Go 4 I lower elevation until the warning stops.

 

[JDawg]

Someone mentioned this site the other day and I like it.
Weather Forecast Maps

 

[pvs]

No anemometer here. What Mossiback stated (above), along with UAV Forecast's Wind Profile is more meaningful to me, though I am a real beginner.

 

[Former Member]

For drones, I use an anemometer if Im doing testing, just for a level playing field. For everyday use, I use the treetops as a guide.

When I flew full scale planes, I would always look at the treetops to determine how bumpy it was going to be. If they were batting around alot, I knew it was going to be a rough day. I always used ATIS before even leaving the house to determine winds aloft.

An enemy of any small aircraft are gusts and winds that change direction between takeoff and landing. For drones, low altitude gusts makes landing difficult without scratching a blade.

 

[Porky]

I just use my common sense

 

[Slim.slamma]

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Another easy way to get wind speed is thru Atti mode
Elevate to a desired height & let the AC drift in Atti
Now you got the speed and direction the wind blows

 

[Beachboy]

I only ask as I see several drone pilots on YouTube using the devises, like all of you I use common sense, trees, flags clouds. Just interested to see if anyone on here used them. Thanks for all responses

 

[FL AV8R]

Someone mentioned this site the other day and I like it.
Weather Forecast Maps

As an aviator and quasi weather buff, all I can say is thank you for mentioning this site. Excellent. Hadn’t seen it.

 

[Test pilot]

The other day someone mentioned a weather app. I can’t remember what the name of it was it was a good one I did look at it can’t find it again it was too real short words and I cannot for the life of me remember what it was I didn’t save the app. Shame on me if anybody can think of any real good ones please let me know thank you.

 

[CanadaDrone]

I bought two actually, thinking they would be great tools to help me figure out when it's safe to fly. I used them a few times until I realized they were pretty well useless. I thought maybe they would tell me that I was being too cautious and would allow me to fly more often - nope. Wind can also be very 'gusty', so an instantaneous reading isn't much help.

I have had half a dozen 'UAV Forecast' type apps, they are all so wildly inaccurate that I have personally found them to be useless as well. Almost 100% of the time, they tell me the opposite of the conditions I am observing while actually standing there. Didn't matter where I was in the world (I travel a lot), they were so inaccurate it was comical - I got rid of them all.

As it turns out there is no better wind gauge than my own personal judgement (what I can feel, looking at treetops, leaves, water, flags, etc.), along with the knowledge that wind is usually much stronger a little ways up in the air and I need to be extremely cautious at all times. No issues to date (knock on wood) and I have less stuff to haul around haha.

 

[FoxhallGH]

The other day someone mentioned a weather app. I can’t remember what the name of it was it was a good one I did look at it can’t find it again it was too real short words and I cannot for the life of me remember what it was I didn’t save the app. Shame on me if anybody can think of any real good ones please let me know thank you.

Was it 'UAV Forecast' or 'Ventusky' ...??

 

[Test pilot]

Was it 'UAV Forecast' or 'Ventusky' ...??

I’m pretty sure it was a UAV forecast site or app.

 

[dronerdave]

I use a Kestrel anemometer for shooting but have used it when flying fixed wing RC stuff. More curious than helpful though. After a time you get to know what is safe and what's questionable. Seem my MP is able to handle wind much better than most of my airplanes. The wind is usually different at various altitudes so It's kind of a shot in the dark. UAV forecast is OK but it updates slow and is more of an average. Several times where I see a 15MPH ground speed at my flying site, I arrive to find it's much different than what the app shows and sometimes it's dead calm.