Against my better judgement I hiked to the top of a mountain and launched. Im in NY so our mountains are like big hills relatively speaking. Nonetheless, the wind gusts were so strong that it carried my P3P a good 400ft away without me touching the controls. Not only were the gusts strong but they were violent and erratic. At certain points I thought it was going to flip the drone and take it into a tail spin dive. If you ever flew on a real airplane you're prob aware that the pilot descends to lower altitudes during turbelence. Although it helped some it didnt help all that much descending - maybe its because of the postion of the propellors, I don't know, I suck at physics. What got me to return the drone to a safe and sound landing was orienting it toward me and weaving left and right while pushing forward slightly. The fight to bring her home was long and rough, ate up almost all of my battery in a little under 12 minutes. Well the first 5 minutes I was freaking out going full throttle saying holy shit I just lost hundreds of dollars. The most frustrating thing out of this whole ordeal was that I NEVER HIT THE RECORD BUTTON! Anyone else have any tactics to fight strong wind currents and extreme turbulence other than just dont fly?   

Nope, I set a limit of 20 mph.  If the wind is higher or stronger than that I stay grounded.  There isn't a reason for me to take a chance on the money I've invested and plan on investing more in to take a chance or ruining anything.  However, I wonder what the conditions were like on the other side of your "mountain"  A lot of times it's completely opposite than on the side you're on.

I don't fly if it's over 15 mph (20 max)...I was seconds away from losing another quad of mine by flying it in a 25 mph wind (Blade 350QX3)...The P3P does handle wind/resistance much better than my Blade or Yuneec, but it's still not safe to fly in high winds

Yeah, but how do you KNOW the windspeed?

Bartone Posted at 2015-9-23 20:10
Yeah, but how do you KNOW the windspeed?

Easy... Just flick a piece of grass.   Seriously though.... Just pick up a cheap one and put it in your case along with the bad elf.  http://www.amazon.com/Caldwell-C ... keywords=Wind+speed

I just use: http://uavforecast.com/

I don't fly over 15 MPH  once I did it at 18 and took it up 300' it was very very hard to fly up there then.  Switched to ATTI mode to test wind and it was almost 30MPH.

Ok, point taken. I will fly under 20mph from now on. The risk is too great and not worth it. Thanks for the tips on measuring the wind speed. Will def take into account the next time I launch. Safe flights all!

I think I'll grabb one of these http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Digit ... hash=item2599db4320

Bartone Posted at 2015-9-23 20:10
Yeah, but how do you KNOW the windspeed?

I carry an anemometer with me everywhere I go...good ball park figure. 15mph MAX