KlooGee
First Officer
Flight distance : 16783757 ft
United States
Offline
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I'll agree with the others, this looks like a clear cut case of the wind overpowering the drone.
From my perspective, it looks like the drone was handling the wind pretty well while in Sports mode, but once RTH was invoked, it wasn't able to muster up enough power to be able to overpower the oncoming wind.
I'm going to copy/paste some details and advice I typed up in a similar thread (https://forum.dji.com/thread-204212-1-1.html) from the last couple of days:
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Some recommendations for future flights:
- Set your RTH height to the lowest possible height to clear any surrounding obstacles (and no higher)
- When wind is blowing hard on the ground, it is blowing significantly harder the higher you go
- When you notice the wind making it drift, switch to Sports mode ASAP to allow it to use more power, lose altitude ASAP to get down out of the strongest winds, and bring it directly back home.
- When wind is blowing hard outside, try to plan your flight so that you are starting out flying into the wind so that if anything happens, it gets blown back in your direction rather than getting blown further away.
- Don't give up on it, fly it until its on the ground
- If it gets away from you, chase after it immediately so that you can hopefully be able to get its signal back before the battery dies.
Sports mode allows a faster descent speed than other modes to allow to get down out of the faster winds at higher elevations. Sports mode also allows the drone to tilt to a higher angle than in other modes. In rotored aircraft, speed is a function of tilt and motor speed.
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One of the issues with relying on RTH in a high wind scenario is an issue of altitude. I don't think the scenario I'm about to point out relates to the original post because they were already at 660ft and I can't imagine their RTH altitude was set higher than that. However, in many cases, the RTH altitude has been set to a height that is higher than the drone may currently be flying.
There are 3 problems with this:
- Firstly, it wastes additional time going higher while it is getting pushed further away from the home point
- Secondly, it wastes additional precious battery power in the ascent
- Thirdly, the wind is faster the higher it goes, so it will be getting pushed away further, faster
As I mentioned, this isn't always the case because the flight might be occurring at a height above the RTH height. So these points I raise here are a non-issue in that scenario.
Lastly, as JJB* had pointed out, Sport mode enables a greater tilt than is enabled in all the other modes. In a rotored aircraft, speed is a function of motor speed and tilt. If you want to see an extreme example of this, check out the first video I made about the Mini where it had a flyaway and reached a max speed of about 65mph. In this case, you can see the tilt of the drone far exceeded the capability of the Mini's gimbal and allowed it to reach an insane speed.
The RTH feature is a fantastic feature and can save you in many cases, but in many high wind scenarios, I still say Sport mode is the better option to allow you to lose altitude quicker to get out of the faster wind and to unlock additional speed to be able to over power the wind.
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Also, I think some have briefly mentioned here, but if something like this happens, the first point is to take action to see if you are able to bring it back home. But quite often, the better answer is to actually look for a suitable alternative safe landing location and divert to that. Once its on the ground in a safe location, then go to it to retrieve it.
In the nearly 1000 flights I've conducted, I've actually done this 2 times due to unexpected issues that arose. Thankfully, both times I was able to safely retrieve my drone.
Never give up on it, fly it until its on the ground! If it gets beyond your signal, chase after it ASAP in a safe manner to try to close the distance on it and regain the signal before the battery dies.
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