Query about drone performance

Hi. New member here, relatively new to flying. General flying practice on quite a warm (26C), calm day on the local rec - flying horizontally forwards, my drone suddenly lost altitude to about half (from about 10m to 5m I would guess) without any control input from me, then returned to normal control at the new height. Any suggestions?

@keithpenn58 Hi and welcome to drone Hub :waving_hand:
What drone was you flying when this happened?

Hi. A V168 Max Pro

My suggestion would be; buy a DJI. :slight_smile:

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Were you flying in open country or perhaps next to a building? You can encounter powerful down-drafts next to buildings. Likewise, wind gusts can easily overpower small drones. Did you check your weather app? When apps show that wind speed is within your drone’s limits, you do occassionally get gusts that far exceed this. It sounds like this might be what happened, and your drone did well to stay in the air.
@SimonDale - alright DJI fanboy, but you still need to have the right DJI drone for the conditions, right? And that’s just to fly. To actually get sharp footage while the lightweight gimbal is flapping around in the wind is another skillset entirely…

Let me put it another way, a drone which costs £41 from Bang Good is going to be crap. It will do weird, unpredictable stuff. My suggestion would be; buy a DJI. :slight_smile:

That may read as unhelpful, but I promise it is the best advice you will ever get. Any DJI product will ‘just work’ and you will be delighted with its performance. (I don’t work for them, I don’t even like them very much as a company - having worked with them between 2010 and 2018 - but this is true).

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Oh, I didn’t realise it was that cheap.
In that case there’s a whole list of potential problems.
Underpowered motors and poor batteries would be top of my list.
This is a drone that should be flown carefully, under virtually windless conditions, within line of sight, and avoiding fences, open water and other obstacles that would make retrieval impossible in case it comes down unpredictably. Like a DJI Mini.

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