Pay attention to the wind at altitude!!

Gsujeff55 · Jan 20, 2016

Video below:

So, thought it'd be a good idea to fly the drone from osprey to downtown St Marys to see if it'd make it. I thought I had about a 12mph tail wind to get there(obviously 12mph headwind to return). Turns out, more like 20mph. Anyway, I made it and turned around when it screamed at me that it was time to bring it back which usually allows for landing at about 25% remaining battery. Well, it would only fly 16mph coming back in the wind.....battery kept dropping as it was barely gaining ground distance wise. It was about 20,000ft (3.75 miles)away when I turned around btw. Long story short, I barely made it back only suffered a minor freak out moment. So, here's the video. It's at 4x speed, the real time trip took just over 18 minutes. You'll notice trip home takes about twice as long as trip there. *note* flight was about 400ft high over St Marys and decended to 175 for most of trip home.

I copy and pasted my Facebook post, so some of that is probably too much info for most of you guys. I didn't think it would make it back, seriously sweating.

It was a beautiful flight, though.

Meta4 · Jan 20, 2016

If you're flying distance, never fly away with a tailwind.

Sinisalo · Jan 20, 2016

Gsujeff55 said:
Video below:

So, thought it'd be a good idea to fly the drone from osprey to downtown St Marys to see if it'd make it. I thought I had about a 12mph tail wind to get there(obviously 12mph headwind to return). Turns out, more like 20mph. Anyway, I made it and turned around when it screamed at me that it was time to bring it back which usually allows for landing at about 25% remaining battery. Well, it would only fly 16mph coming back in the wind.....battery kept dropping as it was barely gaining ground distance wise. It was about 20,000ft (3.75 miles)away when I turned around btw. Long story short, I barely made it back only suffered a minor freak out moment. So, here's the video. It's at 4x speed, the real time trip took just over 18 minutes. You'll notice trip home takes about twice as long as trip there. *note* flight was about 400ft high over St Marys and decended to 175 for most of trip home.

I copy and pasted my Facebook post, so some of that is probably too much info for most of you guys. I didn't think it would make it back, seriously sweating.

It was a beautiful flight, though.

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Did you see how hard that flag is being blown at 1:38?

Gsujeff55 · Jan 20, 2016

I know I'm not supposed to fly away with a tail wind and honestly was just planning to travel out a bit and back. But I saw town and went for it lol. Difference in wind up high vs ground was like 8mph. I'm always prepared to lose the bird and thought I'd be fine with it until the butt pucker moment where I really was unsure if it'd make it back!

Gsujeff55 · Jan 20, 2016

Sinisalo said:
Did you see how hard that flag is being blown at 1:38?

Didn't notice. I'll look.

dixter · Jan 20, 2016

If you get a good weather app you can look up " winds aloft " it will tell you about the winds higher up... I have seen winds actually go in different direction on the ground vs high in the air...

Dirty Bird · Jan 20, 2016

Great flight! Gets your adrenaline pumping watching the battery meter tick down on the return trip.

What was your battery percentage when you landed?

Gsujeff55 said:
Video below:

So, thought it'd be a good idea to fly the drone from osprey to downtown St Marys to see if it'd make it. I thought I had about a 12mph tail wind to get there(obviously 12mph headwind to return). Turns out, more like 20mph. Anyway, I made it and turned around when it screamed at me that it was time to bring it back which usually allows for landing at about 25% remaining battery. Well, it would only fly 16mph coming back in the wind.....battery kept dropping as it was barely gaining ground distance wise. It was about 20,000ft (3.75 miles)away when I turned around btw. Long story short, I barely made it back only suffered a minor freak out moment. So, here's the video. It's at 4x speed, the real time trip took just over 18 minutes. You'll notice trip home takes about twice as long as trip there. *note* flight was about 400ft high over St Marys and decended to 175 for most of trip home.

I copy and pasted my Facebook post, so some of that is probably too much info for most of you guys. I didn't think it would make it back, seriously sweating.

It was a beautiful flight, though.

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Gsujeff55 · Jan 20, 2016

Dirty Bird said:
Great flight! Gets your adrenaline pumping watching the battery meter tick down on the return trip. What was your battery percentage when you landed?

11. I woulda bet I wasn't gonna make it. Was trying to find an accessible dry patch for 5 minutes lol.

MoOriginal · Jan 20, 2016

this is cool but there is a youtuber who posted a distance flight launched from a mountain - nearly 25000 feet total flight down the valley and made it back and landed in atti mode with 2% battery !!!! All with screen record running so you get to feel it minute by minute

Mark The Droner · Jan 20, 2016

I always always always check uavforecast.com before I fly any kind of distance. Not only does it give you info on wind speed at a specific altitude, it also tells you the direction of the wind.

GreggC · Jan 20, 2016

Wow, 20k' away, pretty amazing!!

Gsujeff55 · Jan 20, 2016

MoOriginal said:
this is cool but there is a youtuber who posted a distance flight launched from a mountain - nearly 25000 feet total flight down the valley and made it back and landed in atti mode with 2% battery !!!! All with screen record running so you get to feel it minute by minute

I gotta start recording my screen. Definitely adds to the drama!

Gsujeff55 · Jan 20, 2016

Marknmd said:
I always always always check uavforecast.com before I fly any kind of distance. Not only does it give you info on wind speed at a specific altitude, it also tells you the direction of the wind.

I knew the direction, but definitely underestimated the speed. Drone flying 16mph from 20000 ft away is a helpless feeling!

DiluxEdition · Jan 20, 2016

Be careful up there. Right after some minor rain here in NYC last weekend, I took the P3 up around 400ft. There was no wind on the ground, and suddenly the clouds started moving pretty quick and the P3 was going backwards while doing RTH, I was lucky that it was pretty close to home point, so I just dropped down below 200ft and got it back.

Justgregg · Jan 20, 2016

stock antennas?

GaDrone · Jan 20, 2016

MoOriginal said:
this is cool but there is a youtuber who posted a distance flight launched from a mountain - nearly 25000 feet total flight down the valley and made it back and landed in atti mode with 2% battery !!!! All with screen record running so you get to feel it minute by minute

I did a distance test on youtube launching from a mountain. I did around 27,000FT round trip in 25mph winds. I had 29% when I landed. Max gust was 28.7mph on the flight data.

Gsujeff55 · Jan 20, 2016

Justgregg said:
stock antennas?

Yes, and unfortunately 1.6 firm

Gsujeff55 · Jan 20, 2016

GaDrone said:
I did a distance test on youtube launching from a mountain. I did around 27,000FT round trip in 25mph winds. I had 29% when I landed. Max gust was 28.7mph on the flight data.

Wow! Stock battery and antennas?