This saturday I went out to Mt. Diablo for some inspire 1 flying.What happens when you fly with the wind? speeds reach 50+mph with GPS enabled.
What happens when you fly against the wind and that wind reaches gusts of 25+mph?

Your inspire 1 stays rock solid but your return flight speed is cut in half (25mph) and more likely falls on average between 16-18mph.


I had an on edge flight flying back to me on saturday. I was on one of my last batteries, using a TB47, and on my return sitting at 45% battery life I experienced one hell of a time trying to get back in the wind. It was a close call as I got caught in these gusts of wind that made the inspire 1 fight every foot to get back in time.


I stayed confident but I had one unexpected event occur, when i was within my last 700ft of flight from my home point, my battery dropped from 15% to 7% instantly, resulting in an immediate descent into landing. I did not make it back to my home point, but was able to manuever it within the last 20 seconds to have a mostly graceful landing in an unobstructed area.


I should note, I never start or land via auto start or RTH, so I did not initiate a return to home  command,  I flew it back in GPS, and there were times when the wind knocked me back from being able to pitch forward even at full stick.


I have all the footage, flight data, and the inspire is in perfect shape. But I will also be using the simulator a lot more with wind speed as a factor in helping me get a better handle on how to react to changes in wind speed and direction.

I had this experience also but I was not very far away (about 150-200 meters) and had some time experimenting with it ... (Did not have the auto landing kick in)

I used a combo of both sticks all the way up ... Making the bird gain altitude but also getting some extra power to move forward.
This worked but eventually I had to drop down and this almost made the bird go backwards during descend

w1der Posted at 2015-4-7 04:32
I had this experience also but I was not very far away (about 150-200 meters) and had some time expe ...

The summit of Mt. Diablo stands around 3500 ft tall so I was completely exposed with nothing to shield the wind. For me, I actually tried to use a descent and full stick forward. But even though I knew I wasn't in danger of hitting anything it's a trip to see the app say your flying height is in negative numbers.

Kind of wondering why you even flew in those winds .Does not sound like a safe flight .Just my view .

mtnred@gmail.co Posted at 2015-4-7 09:19
Kind of wondering why you even flew in those winds .Does not sound like a safe flight .Just my view  ...

Valid question, I didn't go out there with the intention of flying in those winds. I look at local whether patterns for the area i'm going to fly before even before heading out with my inspire. Local weather estimated that while I was out during the hours of 10am-5pm that wind speeds would vary between 7-15mph. It just so happened that at 3:40pm when I was flying on my 6th battery for the day that the wind gust speeds reached 25mph. Everything leading up to that point was flawless and had no issues. and even in those winds it handled well. I did not ever feel like it was out of my control, again what I didn't intend for was my battery dropping charge...yes I know you can make the argument that I should have landed it before it even got to 15%, I made my return home at 45%.
.
This was my first real experience dealing with this much force of wind and factoring that in is important, but since we do not have any current real time visual of what windspeed is within the app... it's hard to tell until you are out there going against it.
I thought it would be helpful for people to know, so that they can also factor these things in to there flight procedure. A good test of windspeed is to go into the simulator and switch to ATTI mode and see how the inspire 1 reacts.

Mkell_CA_SF.BAY Posted at 2015-4-7 10:02
Valid question, I didn't go out there with the intention of flying in those winds. I look at local  ...

Please do not think I was questioning you .I am very cautious when I fly . I have $3k in the air and want it back.I live in the north bay and winds are a problem ,as well.

It's all good brother. Theres so much that can happen in any given flight. Be it firmware, wind, battery, LOS issues. every flight has it's things to overcome. The more we can prepare for them the less we have to read about broken or damage inspires or property. What part of the North Bay area are you at?