Evo 2 Pro 6K in High Winds Almost Had Fly Away

[autel-myst]

Have some pretty outrageous expectations here. You flew a drone with a 45mph max speed in ludicrous mode in 40 mph wind gusts and didn't like the performance. And that when you're admittedly new to the platform. Operator error.

 

[gschulzuio]

70mph winds on the surface, lol, im going to put my aircraft away, get a cold beverage and watch the show. Otoh, 70kmh is low to mid 40s, not impossible, however would rather sit back and watch others. Likewise the sustained vs. gusts makes a difference. Gusts into the 30s, put E2P into ludicrous mode to be safe could be ok. Sustained 70 (mph/kmh) at the surface, looking at winds at 100', 250', 400+' which should be higher, would order another cold one and watch...

 

[Paul _77]

Now that is something I definitely agree with...it is amazingly stable in high winds and in Ludicrous mode. With the DJI drones Sport mode meant you aren't filming anything because the gimbal would let through too much jitter; I also had the gimbal on both the P4 and Mavic Pro just give out in Sport Mode and drop down due to gimbal shutdown in the middle of flying.

The EVO II 6K on the other hand is great in both Ludicrous mode and high winds; I've done some car chase scenes and boat scenes and filmed the whole thing in Ludicrous mode; couldn't have done that with DJI drones.



I spent a week in Hawaii and I will say; that was the closest I ever came to losing a drone due to wind. I am very careful with wind but I underestimated the gusts in Hawaii......even in Sport Mode my Mavic Pro was barely moving at 0.6mph......got it back with 3% battery remaining. Almost ruined the whole trip for me since this was literally on day one.

What are your settings in sensitivity? Seems your doing well.

 

[charmin]

It just feels very slow all around so far and really doesn't seem like the drone of choice for high wind flying.

Correct, that's because its a drone intended to give exceptional videography, which it does, its not a stunt drone... !!! but something else if you want to do stupid things...

 

[gschulzuio]

Correct, that's because its a drone intended to give exceptional videography, which it does, its not a stunt drone... !!! but something else if you want to do stupid things...

Try ludicrous mode, granted your OA will be disabled.

 

[herein2021]

What are your settings in sensitivity? Seems your doing well.

Everything is right out of the box, I didn't change anything except the gimbal tilt speed. If I am tracking cars, boats, moving objects I turn up the speed to 30. For all other footage I turn it down to 10.

Correct, that's because its a drone intended to give exceptional videography, which it does, its not a stunt drone... !!! but something else if you want to do stupid things...

Exactly, to me it is perfect to capture useable commercial grade footage even in Ludicrous mode right out of the box. If you want a racing drone, there's plenty of options for those.

 

[herein2021]

I flew a mission yesterday and it was set to 22mph. No problem on the way out, but it would do only 1-3mph trying to get home into the a headwind! It was 2000 feet out and my battery was getting low! I thought I might need to hunt in the woods for it when it died, but it made it home with 3% left as it landed on the pad. Whew!

You could have enabled Ludicrous mode and had it back much more efficiently. This is something I asked for in my wishlist. When it is flying into a headwind it does not turn on maximum power to attempt to reach the set speed limit. Instead it stops at a predefined power output regardless of the actual speed of the drone. In a scenario like yours, you could have lost the drone if you did not enable Ludicrous mode even though the drone had plenty of power reserve to overcome the wind. Which is my other gripe about all the screen taps you need to enable Ludicrous mode...when seconds count you don't want that mode to be minutes away.

I live on Oahu, and I challenge ANYONE to fly a drone in 70mph winds and live to tell the tale. Video or it didn't happen. I have a stable full of drones, and in gusty trade winds, I won't fly any of them, unless its just for short distances where I am sure that I have enough room so that if I need to land it quickly, I can. Winds in Hawaii are pretty finicky, and stronger the higher you go, and they are pretty constant. Use caution. Any long range flights need to start into the wind, so that you can ride the wind back to you with ease, and less power used to cover the same distance out. I won't risk hitting something, someone or losing my drone because I decided I just had to fly in high windy weather.
Safety is king. The power to weight ratio of the Evo II is pretty good in my experience, on par with the P4P2.0...which is a champ in high winds, but the P4P2.0 is loud as heck compared to todays smaller drones, including the Evo II.

That's how I almost lost mine, I am used to FL winds which are almost never constant and rarely last long. The min the Mavic left the ground in Hawaii it took it out over the ocean before I even had a chance to figure out that it was in trouble; and since the wind was constant there were no gaps where it could overcome it. I was at the top of a cliff and ended up dropping to just over the water and using the cliff for shelter while I tried to fight it back to the take off point. As soon as I added altitude to try to get it to land on the cliff the wind would blow it back out to sea. Nothing like that in FL.

 

[aebiv]

I've got the E2P, and a Mavic Air 2, OG Mavic, and an Anafi.

I've had a few other drones over the years as well, but since I can't really A/B test them against the E2P, I won't bother "recalling from memory" how they did.

The E2P is always going to feel bigger than my others, simply because it is. It is both physically larger, as well as heavier. Side by side with the Air 2 on a non windy day? The Air 2 jukes and dives wonderfully. The E2P? It commands more attention to do the same maneuvers with, but I don't consider it piggy. Just not as instantly intuitive?

In high wind, I won't bother with the Air 2. The E2P, for me anyway with high costal winds, has proven to not only be incredibly adept at dealing with changing winds and gusts, but the video stability would make you think it was a calm day. So I guess my experience is the reverse, but I also almost always fly in Ludicrous mode.

The OG Mavic, now that feels like a bus in comparison. It's ridiculously slow to respond, and everything seems like I'm operating through tar in comparison to the others.

The Anafi is my little guilty pleasure, as I'm not sure what it is about the flight characteristics of the bird, but it gets just about as many hours of time as the E2P despite the camera being far inferior.

 

[nextmikeb]

Yeah normal props not the low noise props. I was just blown away....no pun jokes here....lol with how poorly it handled in these winds....felt literally like my Mini cursing and I agree my Mavic drones feel way better in sport mode than this drone hands down to me. I wish they would release a Phantom 5 or something already....this drone I know has its limitations and feel like I have barely pushed it too. I almost had this thing blow away on me and was at around my 400' limit in the city and I am sure the tall buildings made rivers of wind up there but really caught me off guard...was like the thing just blew away in atti mode or something.

I am notv sure if you took in to account that wind spped of 25 mph on the ground is going to be considerably higher at 400 ft. Also you said you were flying between buildings at that altitude that is going to create stronger witnd channels in some cases. 400 feet is not a good altitude to test out a drone in high winds. The winds up there could be 70mph+. I have taken EVO !! out in wind and it always did very well but I can not say I took it up to the 400ft mark. I have had just about every drone on the market, and this one flies just as good as any i have had. I would like too take one of the ones that is sluggish or flies heavy and compare it to mine. I was thinking there could be a manufacturing issue with the EVI 11. Its the old saying that one was built on a Friday immediatly before quitting time and the boss said the faster you finish the sooner you get to go home. Who Knows there just seems to be quality issues with some of them.

 

[Saladshooter]

I flew a mission yesterday and it was set to 22mph. No problem on the way out, but it would do only 1-3mph trying to get home into the a headwind! It was 2000 feet out and my battery was getting low! I thought I might need to hunt in the woods for it when it died, but it made it home with 3% left as it landed on the pad. Whew!

You definitely should have Ludicrous mode on standby for these situations....