[bsamuels]

Let's say you're flying a race drone in windy conditions. you're aiming for a gate that you're going to fly straight through when a large gust of wind hits. You now have to compensate for that wind to correct your trajectory, and that can take a LOT of thrust depending on how large the gust was and how fast you need to correct the trajectory.

It's possible for the maneuver to require so much sideways thrust that you will bleed some altitude and start to fall to the ground (granted on a racing drone this is probably measured in centimeters for most maneuvers, but you get the idea)

Racing drones usually have a thrust:weight ratio of 8:1 or so, but the large Mavik Pro has a thrust:weight of 2.5:1, and their smaller Spark a ratio of ~2:1. You need a minimum TWR of about 2:1 to be flyable.

If the Mavic Mini has a similar TWR as the spark, then it's very unlikely you'll be able to fly it in any sort of windy conditions.

[laurentb]

ok and what does all of this looks like when you're not comparing it against a race drone? Parent comment makes a good point I think, in that the Mavic line has never been geared towards "race drones" so comparing/judging those models based on a certain category that they qualify themselves out of is kind of moot.

I'm in the market for a drone at the moment (eyeing the mavic air over the mini to be honest) for holiday type shots, all this racing stuff is pointless as far as I'm concerned. I can't figure out based on your comment whether the wind will screw a wide shot or not, it might not make it through a circle, but i'll never get this drone through this sort of activity anyway.....

[bsamuels]

If I have a drone with 8:1 TWR and I have to bump my throttle by 20% to compensate for wind, a drone that has a TWR of 2:1 is gonna lose altitude and fail to maintain position.

I realize now that the way I described it in my parent post doesn't make very much sense

[baybal2]

I don't think you can do anything about the wind in a <10kg design.

I saw some quads with lateral DOFs that used swashplates and piston engines in the 40-50kg class, but then you basically have a helicopter with 4x the problems of a helicopter.