Hello everyone,

I recently flew my Inspire 1 around the local soccer fields and was testing its climb rate. Whilst flying, I didn't notice the cloud cover aproaching and the quad became enveloped in the water vapor.

My Inspire was completely engulfed in the cloud and rained on lightly once I brought it on the ground and broke everything down as quickly as possible. When I got home I put 6 silica gel packets inside the case all around the batteries, airframe, and radio then left it closed for two days. Nothing was damaged and the aircraft still performs flawlessly as it did when new.


My question is: What was the wettest condition you've flown in? Should I be concerned about the electronics? What can be done to waterproof the system? (Including the radio)
Thanks for any help!

I guess you got lucky but I would inspect every single area. I have never flown in the rain nor plan to do so.

I would use some type of moisture absorbent method (like the silica) on everything you can before you take a risky flight mission.

Especially the battery.

teamnest1 Posted at 2016-3-1 18:16
I guess you got lucky but I would inspect every single area. I have never flown in the rain nor plan ...

Okay, thanks for the response.

Count your lucky stars! Never fly in the rain, the inspire 1 isn't rain proof. Water is the enemy to the inspire 1, as Kryptonite is to Superman.  

You're really lucky! Please always pay attention to below flight environment requirments for sake of safety.

I have never flown in the rain nor plan to do so, ever.

Ral, what altitude were you flying at?

Getting into the cloud layer is not a great thing to do, as you saw when it came back moist.
More importantly, you can lose visibility of the craft very easily and get into all sorts of trouble.

The Inspire is not able to deal with rain or excessive moisture - just not designed for it.
There are quadcopter UAV that can operate in heavy rain, but not in the Inspire's price range.

Not sure about the Inspire, I've never flown it in rain but my friend has a Phantom 3 which he flew about 3km away before wondering what the, "blurry circles on the video" were... It was clearly rain hitting the lens and I told him to get it back as fast as possible... It was in the rain for a few minutes before landing and it was fine.

Again, to reiterate what others have said, this is obviously not what these drones are designed for, they just happen to survive it *sometimes*. I personally would never recommend flying in the rain, snow, fog, etc.

I would place it in a bag of rice for a week just to be sure everything dries out!

I was flying in fog and very light rain without problems. It got more wet in the fog then from a very light rain. The motors are hot enough to avoid getting wet from a few drops however its better to land as the rain could get stronger very fast.