TIL that the wind is dangerous

[pungbjoern]

There I was, at the airfield. Beautiful day, no clouds, the sun was out, the weather was hot! I arrive and immediately find that I'm not alone. To my surprise and great joy, not only were there people flying quadcopters and airplanes, but also RC cars! I felt like I had arrived in a group of my peers.

We started flying. We started talking. Fly some, talk some. All in all a wonderful time.

I had recently acquired a 450 because it was supposedly more wind resilient than smaller craft. This was my first time flying it in a larger setting. It behaves admirably, though it was still very susceptible to the wind. I was about to find out just how much...

I've always been wary of flying too high, as the wind tends to take the craft and I don't regain much control. I've also always been afraid of just dropping the throttle to get it down, as I imagined that would lead to hard landings. After two packs I started to wonder: "does the auto-level functionality work when it's in free fall, if I apply the throttle?". The answer turned out to be a resounding "YES!". This made me bolder. I started flying more aggressively, knowing that I could drop down to the ground and save it with auto-leveling. This worked very well. Perhaps too well.

At some point, I must have given it a bit too much throttle on the save. It auto-leveled, but that's not all it did. The wind caught it and brought it up higher. I thought to myself "no problem. I'll drop drop it down, save it with the auto-level". This was my first problem. I dropped it, saved it, but the wind too it higher. Rinse and repeat a couple of times, and I lost orientation. I may have even gone out of range. As it started disappearing, my first thought was "I hope it doesn't hit anybody". I started running; running as fast as I can to what I perceived as the potential impact site. Always trying to get control of it, I eventually lost sight of it. It had gone down...

I kept running, thinking I'd hear screaming and see blood and angry fingers pointing and the police arriving. What I found what quite different. Or perhaps I should say what I didn't find. There was no sight of the craft. Not a trace. Nobody seemed angry, nobody was bleeding, nobody was doing anything out of the ordinary. It was as if the craft had been swallowed up by the universe, just to spite me. I searched and I searched. I was ably helped by my new-found friends, and we found nothing. We walked up and down the grass, we checked the trees, the bushes, everything. It had vanished without a trace.

The lesson I learned today is that the wind can be treacherous and fickle. The wind is a harsh mistress, and I paid the ultimate price.

 

[Tritium]

Your name and address was affixed to the craft wasn't it?

Thurmond

 

[pungbjoern]

Your name and address was affixed to the craft wasn't it?

Thurmond

They weren't, no. This is good and bad. It means it won't be returned to me, but it also can't be traced to me.
There is a chance that someone walked off with it, of course. I'm not sure. Maybe someone decided that it looked valuable.

This episode makes me consider buying a flight controller with GPS and return-to-home. It makes the chance of this happening again smaller, but if it does happen, I'll lose so much more money.

 

[ZoomNBoom]

I dont understand the problem TBH.. unless the wind is blowing at hurricane force, just how difficult is it to push the nose down in to the wind and fly to wherever it is you want to go ? I was just out in a sea breeze of 30+ KmH with gusts twice that, but I still flew my miniquad with no problems. Sure precision flying between trees becomes tricky, but just flying around, is no problem at all.

And whats with autolevel? If anything, that makes it more difficult to fly in windy conditions. In manual/acro/ at least you can let go off the sticks once you got the right attitude to compensate for the wind. And free fall? YOu can just descend and unless its a steep hill (with hurricane force wind), wind doesnt push quads up, they just drift with the wind. Lastly, you shouldnt descend (or 'free fall') straight down, then you will fall through your own prop wash which makes it quite unstable. Just go forward in a dive

PS: GPS isnt your solution. It just is not. I dont want to offend you, but you just have to learn to fly. Besides, if its really windy, chances are your GPS enabled FC isnt going to bring it back, because speeds and inclinations tend to be severely limited in navigation mode.

 

[pungbjoern]

I dont understand the problem TBH.. unless the wind is blowing at hurricane force, just how difficult is it to push the nose down in to the wind and fly to wherever it is you want to go ? I was just out in a sea breeze of 30+ KmH with gusts twice that, but I still flew my miniquad with no problems. Sure precision flying between trees becomes tricky, but just flying around, is no problem at all.

And whats with autolevel? If anything, that makes it more difficult to fly in windy conditions. In manual/acro/ at least you can let go off the sticks once you got the right attitude to compensate for the wind. And free fall? YOu can just descend and unless its a steep hill (with hurricane force wind), wind doesnt push quads up, they just drift with the wind. Lastly, you shouldnt descend (or 'free fall') straight down, then you will fall through your own prop wash which makes it quite unstable. Just go forward in a dive

PS: GPS isnt your solution. It just is not. I dont want to offend you, but you just have to learn to fly. Besides, if its really windy, chances are your GPS enabled FC isnt going to bring it back, because speeds and inclinations tend to be severely limited in navigation mode.

You're right about the GPS. As to "how hard can it be?", the answer, obviously, is "too hard for me". It could be that I just need to learn to fly, or I could have drifted out of range. Also, at that range, I couldn't even see which direction it was facing. It's hard to fly when the sticks appear to do nothing. For my next machine, I'm installing a buzzer so I have a better chance of finding it when it goes down.

 

[ZoomNBoom]

When learning to fly multirotors, forget the "3 mistakes high" advice, stay lowish and stay close. You'll have no problems seeing the orientation, you will have less wind than high up, you will not fly out of range (*), and if you mess up, the damage is more likely to be limited.

In a steady wind, the quad doesnt feel it, it has no impact other than drifting with the wind (from the quad's perspective, there is no wind, its just the earth that is moving with the wind). Be very aware of the wind direction and get a feel for its speed and just correct for it. If you're not comfortable with that yet, feel free to wait until the wind dies down.

BTW, rereading your OP, it seems you confuse autolevel with altitude hold? Autolevel (/attitude mode/angle mode) just ensures your quad levels itself when you release the stick, altitude hold tries to hold its altitude (instead of attitude). If you fly line of sight rather than FPV, its probably not a bad idea to start in autolevel, but stay away from altitude hold, and learn to control the throttle first. Its your most important control, and not the easiest to fully master.

* Last point; a 450 size quad can do some real damage. Dont ever fly anywhere near your range limit, and make very sure you have some appropriate fail safe setting. If nothing else, autolevel and low throttle for a controlled descend/crash. With a decent radio, your range ought to be way better than what you can realistically see. If you have a crap radio, stay real close until you upgrade it and put RSSI telemetry high on your want list. YOu really want to know you are getting close to your range limit before you get in to problems.

 

[pungbjoern]

When learning to fly multirotors, forget the "3 mistakes high" advice, stay lowish and stay close. You'll have no problems seeing the orientation, you will have less wind than high up, you will not fly out of range (*), and if you mess up, the damage is more likely to be limited.

In a steady wind, the quad doesnt feel it, it has no impact other than drifting with the wind (from the quad's perspective, there is no wind, its just the earth that is moving with the wind). Be very aware of the wind direction and get a feel for its speed and just correct for it. If you're not comfortable with that yet, feel free to wait until the wind dies down.

BTW, rereading your OP, it seems you confuse autolevel with altitude hold? Autolevel (/attitude mode/angle mode) just ensures your quad levels itself when you release the stick, altitude hold tries to hold its altitude (instead of attitude). If you fly line of sight rather than FPV, its probably not a bad idea to start in autolevel, but stay away from altitude hold, and learn to control the throttle first. Its your most important control, and not the easiest to fully master.

* Last point; a 450 size quad can do some real damage. Dont ever fly anywhere near your range limit, and make very sure you have some appropriate fail safe setting. If nothing else, autolevel and low throttle for a controlled descend/crash. With a decent radio, your range ought to be way better than what you can realistically see. If you have a crap radio, stay real close until you upgrade it and put RSSI telemetry high on your want list. YOu really want to know you are getting close to your range limit before you get in to problems.

Steady wind or not, the fact that it blows in only one direction makes operations behave radically different depending on how you're facing. A turn into the wind is very different from a turn away from the wind. If you're only going straight or hovering, you're otherwise correct.

As for staying low-ish, believe me I tried. Anything over, say, 2-3 meters, and it would be hard to get down. I certainly wasn't trying to fly it far away. I think the main point of failure is that I took it too high up for the fall tests, and that's where things went wrong.

As for confusing the auto-level with altitude hold, that's not what I meant. I simply meant that, with auto-level, it could fall and tumble in any orientation, and giving it throttle would "save" it in the sense that it would turn right-side up, so that I'd have control enough to fly it again.

I've very aware of the damage it can do. It was actually one of the first things that hit me on the maiden voyage (which was previous to this). It was also why I was hoping, as I was running, that it hadn't hit someone. I may not be a great pilot, but I am a decent human being =)

 

[ZoomNBoom]

Steady wind or not, the fact that it blows in only one direction makes operations behave radically different depending on how you're facing. A turn into the wind is very different from a turn away from the wind.

The ground track may look different, but to the quad, its the same thing, just the earth drifting in another direction below it.

As for staying low-ish, believe me I tried. Anything over, say, 2-3 meters, and it would be hard to get down.

I still dont understand this. Why is it hard to get down?

As for confusing the auto-level with altitude hold, that's not what I meant. I simply meant that, with auto-level, it could fall and tumble in any orientation, and giving it throttle would "save" it in the sense that it would turn right-side up, so that I'd have control enough to fly it again.

There is no good reason to make it tumble in the first place. If you need to get down fast, just reduce the throttle *and* make sure you dont come straight down through your own prop wash. Just get some forward speed, in your case, preferably against the wind.

 

[pungbjoern]

The ground track may look different, but to the quad, its the same thing, just the earth drifting in another direction below it.



I still dont understand this. Why is it hard to get down?



There is no good reason to make it tumble in the first place. If you need to get down fast, just reduce the throttle *and* make sure you dont come straight down through your own prop wash. Just get some forward speed, in your case, preferably against the wind.

It's hard to get it down because the wind takes it. You'd think that it'd drop like a stone, but it doesn't. The wind takes it and lifts it up. I'd reduce the throttle to something like 10-20% and nothing would happen. It would make less noise, but not drop at all. It made flying, and recovering, very difficult.

As for actively flying it down, that's a great idea. Not something I had thought of, and also not something that would have worked well with the auto-level I imagine. That's something I have to practice.

 

[ZoomNBoom]

It's hard to get it down because the wind takes it. You'd think that it'd drop like a stone, but it doesn't. The wind takes it and lifts it up. I'd reduce the throttle to something like 10-20% and nothing would happen. It would make less noise, but not drop at all. It made flying, and recovering, very difficult.

If only wind would push up our quads and keep them at constant altitude with just ~10% throttle, I wish! It would mean I could fly 60+ minutes on a battery charge with some wind. It doesnt happen, unless maybe you are slope soaring your quad, and even then. What flight mode are you using, are you sure you're not using some altitude hold where the throttle defines your ascend/descend rate instead of directly the throttle? Otherwise, I can only guess you are misjudging the quad descend rate, and it is coming down but you are not seeing it, or you are panicking because the drift looks more severe than the descend rate (which at 10% throttle, isnt very likely).

As for actively flying it down, that's a great idea. Not something I had thought of, and also not something that would have worked well with the auto-level I imagine. That's something I have to practice.

Autolevel or acro mode, makes no difference. Its just that in auto level you have to keep some forward stick (or any other direction you want), while in acro mode, you just maintain an angle, and you can leave the stick centered. Do practice it, its the only way you want to come down. Straight down is about the one manoeuvre most multirotors cant do very well.

 

[hawkO_O]

might be better to just cut the throttle compleatly if your haveing that kinda trouble next time =X .. chances are your gear would survive the crash ... and much less chance youll hurt someone by accident =X ... after all if its produceing no lift at all the wind shouldnt be able to keep it up

 

[pungbjoern]

might be better to just cut the throttle compleatly if your haveing that kinda trouble next time =X .. chances are your gear would survive the crash ... and much less chance youll hurt someone by accident =X ... after all if its produceing no lift at all the wind shouldnt be able to keep it up

That's what ended up happening. I was trying to do it more controlled, though, to avoid the other people.

 

[pungbjoern]

If only wind would push up our quads and keep them at constant altitude with just ~10% throttle, I wish! It would mean I could fly 60+ minutes on a battery charge with some wind. It doesnt happen, unless maybe you are slope soaring your quad, and even then. What flight mode are you using, are you sure you're not using some altitude hold where the throttle defines your ascend/descend rate instead of directly the throttle? Otherwise, I can only guess you are misjudging the quad descend rate, and it is coming down but you are not seeing it, or you are panicking because the drift looks more severe than the descend rate (which at 10% throttle, isnt very likely).



Autolevel or acro mode, makes no difference. Its just that in auto level you have to keep some forward stick (or any other direction you want), while in acro mode, you just maintain an angle, and you can leave the stick centered. Do practice it, its the only way you want to come down. Straight down is about the one manoeuvre most multirotors cant do very well.

You don't have to believe me if you don't want.

 

[razor02097]

The only way to get a multirotor to descend rapidly in a controlled manor is to use transitional flight. You have to bleed off the upward energy. Basically maintain enough throttle for the FC to maintain stability and fly in a nice short slope or in circles.

As for orientation that takes a lot of skill not to panic and to begin troubleshooting to regain your orientation. The best advise I can give you is this... practice your orientation. Use a simulator, buy a small toy quad...The only reason I bought my Syma X12 is to practice losing and regaining orientation in a small park space.


Here are the very basic of basics to get you started...

1. turn on auto level to attempt to stop the vehicle from continuing in it's path.
2. use the pitch and roll sticks to find out which axis moves the vehicle right or left.

• If the vehicle moves right with right roll axis hold steady back pitch to bring the vehicle toward you.
• If the vehicle moves left with right roll axis hold steady forward pitch to bring the vehicle toward you.
• If the vehicle moves right with forward pitch hold steady left roll to bring the vehicle toward you.
• If the vehicle moves left with forward pitch hold steady right roll to bring the vehicle toward you.

Now in the real world you will have wind and the quad may not be oriented in 90 degree increments. THIS is where the practice comes in. Getting the muscle memory to use BOTH pitch and roll to bring it back to you is very important. When you lose orientation DO NOT USE YAW until you regain your orientation! That is the fastest way to lose your multirotor.