I was just curious at what wind speed most pilots consider it unsafe to fly? I believe DJI states it at 22 miles per hour and a high wind speed warning will go off at 15 miles per hour. Normally, I'd say 12 mph is iffy and for me, 15 is probably the ultimate max. I was flying near a mountain ridge the other day and got a high wind warning, and wrapped it up pretty quickly. But it just had me wondering where most pilots draw the line. My informal rule is if it is windy enough to blow your car door shut, absolutely not! When I'm filming for others, I tell them that if it is too windy, cannot do it.

There is no simple max wind speed.
You have to consider the direction of the wind and how that may affect your return home as well as how far you need to fly.
If I can find a sheltered spot for launching, I've flown in winds up to 22 knots (25 mph) as long as the return flight will not be against a headwind.
If you aren't flying any great distance, the Phantom can easily hold position in winds of this strength and more.

Ive got the P3P and it handles anything up to 30-35 km/h without any issues of low RTH speed or any video jitter. Higher than that I get jitters in the video but the drone is perfectly fine.

If its gusting more than 30mph at 10m i normally stay home, but i have done some wind turbine flying and i bet it was gusting at around 40mph, i was in sports mode but the P4P was holding its own thats for sure.
Something you have to bear in mind though, if you fly in winds stronger than the ac's max wind resistance, your warranty (if applicable) may become invalid

People often experience flyaways, but no one ever mentions their drone being blown away...
I presume, these are overlapping experiences.


RedHotPoker

Some flyaways on here have been caused by too windy conditions for the drone, i think a few P3's have done gone walkabout cause the RTH speed was slower than the windspeeds

I have tested my P4A in 55kmh @ 15m AGL and it sat there like a champ. I then went up to 50m and did a bit of flying around. Then RTH and packed up and went home.

Having lost my P3S into the river for flying out too far and headwind increased for run home - I am more careful now.

I look out window ... if I see tree movement that is above that of a breeze - I only consider low / close in sheltered work. Even that has caught me out but luckily no mishaps. Classic one of my recent 'garage workshop' update videos. Took off and all fine till I got round other side of the building and then my P3P was visibly fighting gusting winds.

I have to say that no matter what model I am flying ... unless its slope soaring glider - I do not enjoy flying in significant wind.

Nigel

solentlife Posted at 2018-10-8 04:23
Having lost my P3S into the river for flying out too far and headwind increased for run home - I am more careful now.

I look out window ... if I see tree movement that is above that of a breeze - I only consider low / close in sheltered work. Even that has caught me out but luckily no mishaps. Classic one of my recent 'garage workshop' update videos. Took off and all fine till I got round other side of the building and then my P3P was visibly fighting gusting winds.

Wind certainly removes some of the fun factor for me too, it goes from being fun to anxiety/stress pretty quick.

20 km/h for operations between 50/75 metres height, measured and log registered with anemometer at ground level. This means a theorical 30 km/h at 50 metres height and 35 km/h at 75 metres heigh, as advised by spanish regulators and by DJI operational limits. I do it for security and since I mostly do photogrammetry work, high camera shaking is not good for results.

There have been lots of threads on this over the years.

My personal limits for an out and back run re winds at 400':  20 mph initial head wind, 15 mph initial tail wind, 10 mph cross wind.  

If the tops of the nearby trees (app. 90 ft tall) are significantly moving, I don't fly.  I get wind warnings almost every flight, even though the wind is not blowing anywhere near 22 mph.  

Seems like basically the rule is "Don't fly on windy days".
Ok on breezy days.

It's always blowing at least 30MPH here on the mountain where I live and I have managed to fly pretty smoothly, although crosswinds sometimes make the AC tilt beyond the range of the gimbal's abiliity to correct.

VetteGuyZ06 Posted at 2018-10-17 11:05
If the tops of the nearby trees (app. 90 ft tall) are significantly moving, I don't fly.  I get wind warnings almost every flight, even though the wind is not blowing anywhere near 22 mph.

I get wind warnings flying too fast some days, it's a bit touchy to be honest.

Slightly aside from this post, most folk look at wind speeds at around 10m. How many of us check out winds higher than that before each flight? I run my own weather station and very often winds for higher levels are so much different to my readings. I would also suggest that flying in wind speeds of different levels require different skill sets.

I do think about winds at height somewhat but not as much as the 10m winds, reason being is that i can always bring it down to lesser winds if theres any issues, my max is about 30mph gusts at 10m, i know thats going to be at least 40mph gusts at 400ft, the only time i would fly in that scenario would be for a speed test or wind turbine shots...

I hit 30 mph gusts sometimes and my unit, a Mavic 2 Zoom handles it.

I use 15 mph, being half the max speed.  Gotta get home!  

I think the main reason DJI doesn't like high wind has as much to do with the gusty nature of a high wind rather than the speed.  It's a very rough ride out there with the sustained winds approaching 20 mph, and the roughness due to gusts is mostly hidden from the pilot due to the gimbal.  Try it with a P2V or an FC40 and you'd see how rough it is.  

Depends on the mission, but generally 12-15 knots is my limit just because the quality will start to diminish after that, especially when trying to stitch a map together. At least, that has been my experience when I tried mapping in a sustained 15 knot wind on the ground, meaning at altitude the winds were markedly higher.

The Northeast US had a very windy spring and early summer. I've not recalled a longer period of non-stop wind in many decades. One day in early June, the wind was strong enough to blow the hat off my head and I chose that opportunity to practice flying ATTI. The wind speeds were about 30 MPH continuous from the northwest with gusts to 40.
The craft flew fine. Granted, flying cross wind, the craft would tilt often pas the gimbal's ability to correct, plus progress was slow flying INTO the wind.On another day, not quite as windy, I was flying in P mode and tooling along about 13MPH when I got a motor overspeed warning. So I backed off the throttle a little more. Normal flight otherwise.

Mark The Droner Posted at 7-20 03:05
I think the main reason DJI doesn't like high wind has as much to do with the gusty nature of a high wind rather than the speed.  It's a very rough ride out there with the sustained winds approaching 20 mph, and the roughness due to gusts is mostly hidden from the pilot due to the gimbal.  Try it with a P2V or an FC40 and you'd see how rough it is.

I would say their dislike of winds, ie limit of 22mph for p4p is purely because of the RTH speed, that speed has probably been worked out for best mileage per battery.

Bashy Posted at 7-20 18:52
I would say their dislike of winds, ie limit of 22mph for p4p is purely because of the RTH speed, that speed has probably been worked out for best mileage per battery.

My scientific method of working out wind speed works for me out in the countryside. I take a pee, and if the stream is horizontal, I don't fly.

I dislike high winds, simply because the higher the wind, either average or gust, the less the flying is enjoyable. In high winds you are constantly fighting to make sure the aircraft is on track, even with computer assistance. I use the trees where I fly to gauge wind speed on the ground and further up, and use that to determine if I am over my limit.

Geebax Posted at 7-20 19:08
My scientific method of working out wind speed works for me out in the countryside. I take a pee, and if the stream is horizontal, I don't fly.

ha, that works for me too lol

We don't get lots of wind here in the southwest, but I'm from New York and if I adopted my principles since living here I'd likely fly unexpectedly far less given how many days of sunny but windy weather would preclude me from flying my Mavic Pro...

embayweather Posted at 7-21 04:20
I dislike high winds, simply because the higher the wind, either average or gust, the less the flying is enjoyable. In high winds you are constantly fighting to make sure the aircraft is on track, even with computer assistance. I use the trees where I fly to gauge wind speed on the ground and further up, and use that to determine if I am over my limit.

I agree, for me >30mph gusts takes the fun factor out of it, i wont fly my anny (at 10m) shows higher than 30mph gusts before leaving home, bit of  lie i spose, cause its actually lower than that, anything above 25 gusts and i wont leave home, unless i have a specific reason, say wind turbines for example...

What procedure do people use for landing in windy conditiions?
Where I have concerns about it flipping I have started to catch it rather than land it.

I too hand catch where needed

I was wondering this about this same issue because I was going to catch some storm damage today but the winds are at 18 mph.  I am going to check and see what they will be at the city I am going to.  

Bipolar2 Posted at 3-31 12:19
I was wondering this about this same issue because I was going to catch some storm damage today but the winds are at 18 mph.  I am going to check and see what they will be at the city I am going to.

You should use a site such as uavforecast.com or windy.com and check the winds at the height you plan to fly.   Weather.com is not the place to check for wind.  Good luck.

Mark The Droner Posted at 4-1 03:48
You should use a site such as uavforecast.com or windy.com and check the winds at the height you plan to fly.   Weather.com is not the place to check for wind.  Good luck.

Thank you very much.  Will do.

Mark The Droner Posted at 2021-4-1 03:48
You should use a site such as uavforecast.com or windy.com and check the winds at the height you plan to fly.   Weather.com is not the place to check for wind.  Good luck.

Thanks for the wind.com  Its amazing the amount of info they give you for free. Wow

When I fly, I have flown in winds as high as 30 Mph but I feel as though I was pushing it.  I use the app UAV to get wind at different altitudes.  This is real important, as wind usually different, even though it doesn't look like it.  I also use an anemometer to measure the wind at ground level to make the decision as well.  I don't like to take chances with any of my drones.  I will never fly my Mini 2 at 30 Mph.  I would fly my Phantom 4 Pro and my Air2S, they can handle it.  But I wouldn't fly them too high.