So I was flying my Mavic today. Winds are forecasted 16mph NE. It was breezy outside during my flight. She was up 200 meters. Full throttle forward I was getting average horizontal speeds of 10m/s.

Coming back with a possible headwind, I was only getting variable 1.5 to 3.9m/s horizontal speeds. I know the Mavic was fighting it and I even got worried at some point that it seemed like the Mavic is not even moving forward (by looking at my phone it appeared hovering) although I can see the distance between me and the drone is slowly decreasing. This is still me doing a full forward throttle and controller signal is at full bars. So I'm guessing headwind is the culprit.

If I had switched to sports mode at that time, would I be seeing a higher horizantal speeds with headwind?

Depends on the speed of the headwind. What you should of done if you had room, lower your altitude, it may have a lower headwind speed.

Jake Phantom 3  Posted at 2016-11-6 01:57
Depends on the speed of the headwind. What you should of done if you had room, lower your altitude,  ...

Ah. Did not think about that. Thank you, sir!

If your comfortable flying you could have switched to sport mode and it would have zipped right on over.

you were 200 meters up, so that's 80 meters above legal limit , air up that height can also be much heavier and wind can be much stronger, you should have lowered aircraft to at least 120 meters or much lower, if aircraft was struggling as much as you say , you could have used sport which will handle headwinds a lot better,
Probably lucky you didn't meet a manned light aircraft..

hallmark007 Posted at 2016-11-6 03:26
you were 200 meters up, so that's 80 meters above legal limit , air up that height can also be much  ...

How about RTH, can it fight high winds (like beeing in sport mode) or will it loose the Mavic if windspeed is higher than P-Mode allows ?

That would be hilarious...

Nils

nils_heidorn Posted at 2016-11-6 20:00
How about RTH, can it fight high winds (like beeing in sport mode) or will it loose the Mavic if w ...

I'm not to sure about that one never had that problem, but there post on other forums which say that P4 can calculate on let's say it's outward flight the winds and speed it needs to return, I'm not 100% sure if this is correct, and if the same is true for Mavic.
Reality if wind is to strong Mavic will be blown away, pilot error for making wrong call on the weather. Let see who will be the first.

hallmark007 Posted at 2016-11-7 04:29
I'm not to sure about that one never had that problem, but there post on other forums which say th ...

Well, one could call every weakness of the craft "pilot error" as the pilot should know it and act for it, but this one is so easy. GPS can measure groundspeed and if RTH aims at a certain groundspeed it would just be the matter of checking "allow RTH going to sports mode switching off Obstacle avoidance" and there you go...
About 10 lines of code for the function and a minute in the GUI Editor.

There always is a lot of wind where i live and it can also be *very* different at different Altitudes.
I could fly around happy and need a high RTH Altitude because of giant trees and when RTH is activated it goes up into the storm.

I prefer my Mavic coming home then :-)

Nils

nils_heidorn Posted at 2016-11-6 20:43
Well, one could call every weakness of the craft "pilot error" as the pilot should know it and act  ...

But for every "simple" improvement like this, you increase the overall complexity of the system, and create brand new and unexpected ways for the system to fail and / or create pilot confusion due to the altered RTH behaviour. Plenty of commercial aircraft have crashed + lives lost as a result of manufacturer safety "improvements" especially to the same type of aircraft.

fansc798bb00 Posted at 2016-11-7 05:55
But for every "simple" improvement like this, you increase the overall complexity of the system, a ...

Things have to progress, also commercial airliners are nit stuck in the 50's anymore.
You need to have a working Unit Test and good Quality Check people for jobs like these.
I guess DJI hasnt...
(Or more probable they have been rushed by the Management)

Nils

fansc798bb00 Posted at 2016-11-6 21:55
But for every "simple" improvement like this, you increase the overall complexity of the system, a ...

What nils is looking for is €1000 aircraft with features of a €5000 aircraft, Mavic packs a lot of stuff into a well priced piece of kit, it's clearly up to pilots to know it's limits, and what it is designed for..

hallmark007 Posted at 2016-11-7 08:50
What nils is looking for is €1000 aircraft with features of a €5000 aircraft, Mavic packs a lot  ...

Not really. I just ask for it to come home if it is technically possible just by a slight and easy change of Software, dont overcomplicate what i want :-)

I took part in programming ports of Arducopter so i really know what i am talking of...


Nils

RTH on the P4 goes full out. not sure if mavic is the same. Here's my P4 after I was being silly in the mountains and it decided to go home. ok I sped it up in the video but it was hailing to get back.

nils_heidorn Posted at 2016-11-7 08:22
Not really. I just ask for it to come home if it is technically possible just by a slight and easy  ...

I bow to your supeiror knowledge. Lol

nils_heidorn Posted at 2016-11-7 08:22
Not really. I just ask for it to come home if it is technically possible just by a slight and easy  ...

This isn't a programming or unit testing problem - it's a usability problem.  With every 'slight and easy' solution, you create an array of unintended consequences in real-world operation of the aircraft.

fansc798bb00 Posted at 2016-11-7 21:23
This isn't a programming or unit testing problem - it's a usability problem.  With every 'slight a ...

I am a programmer myself, i know about that.
And of course i had my shares of "Let me change that quickly, its safe" failures.
They ARE allowed to test it after the changes :-)
There obviously is a lack of testing the Mavic in QC anyways so why not do something good.

BUT as shown on the P4 above, maybe it already works just fine and hallmark007 was misinformed.
That would be my desired solution and i would have nothing to grumble about it :-)

I certainly have enough opportunities to test it here as we have no short supply of strong winds.

So it seems as long as no DJI supporter is willing to answer this i have to try...

Nils