Windy Flight and FPV Power Tests

This was a pretty tense flight. The wind was really kicking, and I shouldn’t have gone up! It was difficult to bring it down, and I was worried I’d lose power and not be able to fight my way back to the runway.

There’s a reason we fly early mornings and evenings! 5PM is still too early!

My last fpv flight with the E-Flite Maule M-7 I flew 5 min and completely depleted my 3S 2200mah battery. I thought perhaps my fpv system was drawing too much power. So I added a second 800mah 3s dedicated to the fpv system. I ran it for at least 10 min inside and still had 4.1v. I flew it for 5 min and still had 4.1V. I have another 2S 2000mah I'm testing and after 18 minutes it's at 3.98v. I'll probably use the 2s if it's lighter.

The flight battery however was at 3.75 a cell after about 5 min of flight! I clearly need a bigger battery. E-Flite recommends 2200 - 3200 3S or 4S. 2200 is definitely on the low side. I’m curious how much I can push it to get more flight time. An E-Flite 4S 3200mah is 13oz, while a Floureon 3S 4500 is 12.17oz. I wonder which would give a longer flight. . . Might have to get both. . . for science!

2S 2000mah from taranis radio. 31 min of video transmission.

I’m confident I could use a much smaller 2S to run my video feed. I could run it off the flight battery since it uses so little power, but I do like the separate systems.