Oh Where ‘o Where has My Little Drone Gone, Has the Wind Blown it Away?
Due to the length of this Thread, I will post a Reply to Myself for the Second Part of this Thread……………….
This thread was written for another Mavic Drone Web Site and the members were troubled in determining how much wind their drones could safely fly in. I wrote:……………….
First thing you need to do is read your User Manual and learn how Wind can affect your Drone. Not only can the wind destroy your drone, it affects its Flight Characteristics and Flight Time. If you are flying with a strong tail wind, your Drone may not have enough battery reserve to return fighting a head wind. If you are flying along in a nice slow pace (by indicated air speed), you may not realize that your Drone is flying at Maximum power just to fight that head wind and your flight time will be drastically reduced by your Drone drawing so much power from the battery just to maintain that slow pace…
If you are using the UAV App to predict Flight Conditions, then you need to setup the UAV Flight App for your particular Drone and you own aversion to flying in harsh conditions.
THE UAV App is totally User Definable; you only need to Tap the specific category. In the illustration I Tapped the "Gust" Block and the Setup Screen comes up and you define what is acceptable and what is not. The Mini does not have the wind bucking ability of the Mini SE or Mini 2 and the they do not have the wind bucking ability of the Mini 3. You decide what you are willing to accept. So, if you had a Mini you would set the Gusts lower than for a Mini SE and Mini 2, and they would be set lower than the Mini 3.
Please see the UAV Screen Graphic Below……………………
Taking your Drone's Wind-Bucking ability and your adversity to watching your little bird getting whipped around by the wind, you need to establish just how much you are willing to accept as Acceptable Gusts. Just because the UAV App says there are 35 MPH gusts in your area, perhaps your specific area is tree lined or there are adjacent hills that are blocking the wind; and it does not mean you cannot fly in those "reported Gusts…"
In the worst case, you can screw-up the setup so badly by accepting the highest or lowest values in all categories (for example 50 MPH Gusts, 100% Precipitation, Zero (0) Satellites, Zero (0) Visibility, etc…) that the App would say, "It's Good to Fly" with a Hurricane outside…
By the way, on the Satellites, you need to check your User Manual as to which of the Global [size=15.008px]Positioning Systems your Drone will receive signals. My Mini 2 only receives the USA's GPS, Europe's Galileo, and Russia's Glonass. It does not receive China's Beidou. So I have the Beidou disabled in the UAV App…
Now how you set it up is all up to you and no two will be exactly the same. For example, you and your friend both fly the Mini 3, but one of you has a lower threshold to the risk of damaging your Drone…
End of Part One……………………..