Flew today in moderate wind, gusting up to 13mph and the spark was moving all over the place. When palm launched it moved about 4m sideways. Didn't obey guestures! Is this normal. I thought it would cope with winds up to 20mph?

its rated for 12mph continuous..i played in 15 mph winds..    it probably can handle 20mph continuous winds but it will be struggling to go head on against it or to compensate for it quickly.   gusts of wind at 20mph no, the spark will likely fail to keep up very well, it probably stay up in the air but it wont like gusting 20mph winds.


as for gestures, its gimmicky, and half broken in ideal conditions..

People have had mixed results with gestures.  I personally don't rely on gestures, I'm waiting for more fine tuning from DJI.  As far as wind goes, I won't fly in winds >10mph.  In my experience as long as the flyer waits for gps lock, it will handle the winds.  But if you are palm flying (no phone and no controller), I've no idea how you can tell when the device has locked on to GPS.  When launching from palm, it's suppose to lock onto your face, but I've had it do similar things, fly a short distance from my palm.

i have noticed the same on my second drone it moves a lot side by side with minimum wind, This is also flying with good gps lock and no special features

I used the Spark on the coast of Ireland where the wind was always kicking and the Spark did surprisingly well.  It warned me to fly with caution due to high winds just about every time there!  I didn't try any gestures there so I can't comment on that but I was happy with its performance when connected to the remote controller and I got some awesome video.  

I've flown the spark in substantial wind, and even with the "high wind warnings" the video turned out great.

Charles Adams Posted at 2017-8-3 10:53
People have had mixed results with gestures.  I personally don't rely on gestures, I'm waiting for more fine tuning from DJI.  As far as wind goes, I won't fly in winds >10mph.  In my experience as long as the flyer waits for gps lock, it will handle the winds.  But if you are palm flying (no phone and no controller), I've no idea how you can tell when the device has locked on to GPS.  When launching from palm, it's suppose to lock onto your face, but I've had it do similar things, fly a short distance from my palm.

I connect controller first, update home potion, then palm launch. The grass was too long to launch from the ground.

I ve flown mine many times in 15kts plus gusts. No issue. Even coming back to the boat so it just hovers in place making it easy to grab

I`ve flown in strong winds with the warning and its been solid with very stable video, this is with controller