![]() ![]() Flight Conditions Can Affect Flight TimeĪnother major factor affecting your drone’s real life flight time is the weather and air conditions. Not only that, but they decrease the drone’s overall efficiency by interfering slightly with how well they achieve lift, and both of these things together add up to shorter flight times. This will protect the drone and propellers in case of a crash, but they also add extra weight. Perhaps the most common add-on that beginners typically have attached to their drone is propeller guards. The parachute probably only adds a few ounces, but still that extra weight means loss of flight time. Or it could be an emergency parachute designed to deploy in case of propeller or motor failure and prevent a hard crash. The added weight of the lights, minimal though they may be, will impact battery life, as will the added drain to the batteries of powering the LEDs. For example, if you’re using your Phantom 4 for fishing, and have attached a bait release rig, and are hauling fishing line, you can expect to lose 3-4 minutes of flight time.Īnother example of a payload adding weight to your drone would be lights fixed on your drone for night time flights. The minute you add on any additional payload, meaning other attachments, the added weight is going to reduce your battery life, meaning a shorter time in the air. The manufacturer advertised flight times obviously are taking into account only the weight of the drone in its standard configuration. Here are some of the things that impact battery life and actual drone flight times. I keep mentioning it, so let’s talk about why the actual flight times are (almost) always less than the advertised maximum flight time. Why Drone Flight Times are Less than Advertised And you can do a lot with an hour of in the air time. Add on to that a second battery, and you can be in the air for around an hour, almost uninterrupted. Not bad, considering how much ground you can cover in half an hour. Taking the average flight times of these popular higher-end consumer drones, you end up with around 28 minutes of expected flight time. ![]() Advertised Flight Times for High-End Prosumer Drones Keep in mind again, however, that the actual flight time will most likely be 2-5 minutes less than the advertised max. If we do the same as above, and take the average of these mid-level drones’ flight times, we can expect an average maximum flight time of around 22 minutes. Advertised Flight Times for Popular Mid-level Drones When it’s only a 10 minute flight to begin with, that doesn’t leave you with much continuous air time. But the frustrating bottom line is that they won’t go for very long without needing a recharge, and it’s usually even shorter than the published max flight time. You will of course find some with longer flight times, and many with shorter. Taking these models as a representative sample, the average advertised flight time for toy drones is about 10 minutes. Advertised Flight Times for Popular Toy Drones There are several different ways to think of drone types, but for our purposes we’ll break the standard off-the-shelf options into three basic categories: toy drones, mid-level, and high-end drones. The biggest factor influencing the overall flight time of a drone is the type of drone that it is. Other factors that contribute to actual flight times include external factors such as weather conditions and how you’re using the drone. Some of these factors are the drone itself, the batteries it uses, the type of motors it has, how much it weighs, etc. The reality is that actual flight times will usually be a bit less than claimed for a number of reasons.Ī lot of factors contribute to the flight time of any given drone on any given flight. With a high-quality consumer drone, you can expect to see a posted flight time of around 30 minutes, while lower quality toy drones will have published flight times of 5-15 minutes. The actual flight time is usually shorter than they claim it could be. You just got it up there, and barely had a chance to look around, so how could the battery already be running out? Is it just me, or does the battery always run low way before the manufacturer posted possible flight time? No, it’s not just me. There’s nothing more frustrating than spotting a perfect angle for a drone shot, getting it lined up just, almost, right… and the low battery light starts flashing. ![]()
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