Weather, Altitude & Terrain Logic @Wild Boar
Yo — Wild Boar here. Let’s not sugarcoat it:
Weather, altitude, and terrain don’t care about your skills.
They don’t care how premium your stack is, or that your quad flies like a dream on a sim.
The mountain will still eat your gear for breakfast if you show up cocky.
This chapter isn’t theory. It’s bruises, lost drones, foggy lenses, wind-whipped failsafes, and that sinking feeling when your signal dies and you realize — you didn’t think this part through. And yeah... I f*cked up more than once so you don’t have to.
The Day the Sky Turned
There was this one flight. Perfect weather, solid link, clean launch. I hiked a ridge all morning for this shot — classic saddle gap, clean light.
Five minutes in, a fogbank rolls in like a horror movie. Not from above. From behind. I hit the far side of the pass, turn for home, and boom — grey screen.
I’m inside a cloud. FPV cam fogged. OSD glitching. GPS Rescue says “sure bro,” but just
hovers. Wind’s picked up. Quad never made it back. Took me two hours to hike around and find it face-down in asnowdrift.
Lesson? Mountains don’t play fair. And I didn’t plan for that kind of ambush. Rookie move.
Windy.com Isn’t Optional
You wanna go long-range in the hills? You live on Windy. Not just before the flight — I checkit the night before, the morning of, and right before I arm.
Here’s what I look for, every single time:
● Wind direction — especially above 100m. Wind at the surface might be calm, but up
where you're flying? It’s chaos.
● Gust layers at 500–1000m — those will slap your quad sideways without warning.
● Pressure zones and thermal bubbles — especially late morning into afternoon. Hot
air rising = turbulence city.
● Terrain overlay — this shows you where the wind collides with ridges. That’s where
GPS Rescue fails and quads vanish.
I use the altitude slider like a drone preview. If the arrows are screaming over the ridgeline at
30kph? That’s not a good outbound. That’s a big fat NOPE.
And here’s the trick most people miss: Fly into the wind on the way out. Why? Because if
something fails, or Rescue kicks in, the wind helps bring it home. I’ve watched quads float
back on 10% throttle thanks to a tailwind.
Now flip it: tailwind out, and headwind home? I’ve seen Rescue spin in place, burn half th pack, then nosedive into the trees. That’s not flying. That’s searching with a sad beeper.
You don’t just use Windy. You read it like a survival map.
The Truth About Altitude
Altitude sounds sexy until your quad handles like wet cardboard.
At 2500 meters:
● Air is thin → props bite less
● ESCs run hotter
● Li-ion packs sag like dead fish
Your throttle curve feels like it's underwater. That juicy punch you’re used to? Gone. You gofull throttle and the quad just... sighs.
You ever triggered GPS Rescue at high altitude? It climbs and climbs — because Betaflight thinks it's still launching from sea level. Meanwhile, you're watching voltage nosedive and distance ticking upward. Terrifying.
And then there's the cold.
I once launched off a glacier ridge at 7am. Sunny, but -12°C. Packs were warm at the start, but after two minutes of cruise they were sagging like I'd been flying for 12. Rescue kicked in, started its climb — and black screen. F*ck.
Now I:
● Pre-heat all Li-ion packs — not just in a warm bag, but sandwiched with hand
warmers
● Wrap my GoPro in foam so it doesn’t shut down mid-flight
● Keep all backup packs close to my chest, inside my jacket, not my backpack
● Adjust throttle curves for high altitude when flying over 1500m
Also: keep an eye on altitude difference between launch and target. Flying downhill and
triggering Rescue means it’ll overshoot. Plan terrain-based altitudes accordingly.
Flying high is cinematic. But it’s also where you’re closest to the edge — of the mountain,and your quad’s limits. No mercy up there.
Fog: The Silent Killer
Clouds look cool on Insta. Until you’re in one. And then it's not cinematic — it’s survival
mode.
Fog doesn’t just kill visibility. It kills:
● OSD legibility
● Video clarity
● GPS consistency
Your feed turns grey, your GoPro fogs, and suddenly you're flying blind, trying to interpretghosted overlays and sketchy voltage with 2 km between you and your launch pad.
First time it happened to me, I thought I could just punch through. Cloud was thin. Looked harmless. One minute in — video went soft, then full mush. GPS bounced. I had to trust the home arrow and sound. No visuals, no GoPro, no DVR. I landed by ear and dumb luck. I got lucky. I also got humble.
Now I treat fog like a boss fight. I prep like I’m flying blind from the start:
● Spray anti-fog on the FPV lens — religiously. Especially analog. But even DJI can
blur in cold.
● Add a lens hood or micro-shade — helps with moisture roll-off and light blowout.
● Trust instruments over instinct — home arrow never lies. Horizon does.
● Keep altitude under the cloud shelf — fly below it, skim it if you must, but don’t
disappear inside unless you’re ready to land on feel.
Bonus: set up your OSD to be extra legible — clear fonts, big arrows, no fluff. In fog, less is more.
Because yeah, clouds look pretty. Until they grab your quad and erase it from view. Fast.
Terrain Lies to You
That line on Google Earth? It’s lying.
The terrain looks clean on satellite view, but it hides stuff the maps can’t show — wind
funnels, signal shadows, sketchy lighting, and blind curves.
I once flew a gap run that looked butter smooth. Full tailwind on launch, signal rock solid. I hit the far end, flipped 180, triggered Rescue... and nothing. The wind had flipped on me.
What felt like a dream line became a death trap.
The quad hung mid-air, then slowly starteddrifting sideways. I watched the RSSI tick down and altitude drop until... silence.
That’s when I learned: never trust the line without testing both ends. And yep — I f*cked
that one up big time.
Now when I plan terrain lines, I do it like recon:
● I DVR the full outbound line — so I can review lighting, wind, GPS behavior
● I check signal not just from launch, but from the return angle
● I avoid flying behind ridges or terrain bulges unless I’ve confirmed there’s no RF
dead zone
● If I dive, I make sure my signal and rescue have enough altitude buffer to climb out
Another tip? Watch the sun. Late afternoon light can bounce off snow and cliffs like a mirror,
washing out your FPV feed at the worst moment.
The mountain looks calm from above. But under the surface, it’s chaos. So plan like it wants
to take your quad — because it does.
My Wild Terrain Checklist
● Windy forecast checked for launch + 30 mins
● Terrain profile scouted in 3D
● Packs kept warm until plug-in
● DVR + GPS logs on
● Cam defogged
● GoPro pre-warmed (or padded)
● Visibility rule: if I squint, I don't arm
I’ve hiked home too many times in silence, kicking snow with one glove off, holding a
half-frozen quad.
You don’t forget flights like that. And that’s why this chapter isn’t optional.
Coming Up Next
Flight Modes & Setup for Mountain Control
Muscle memory switches, mode logic, and how not to flip into Horizon mid-freefall.
✦ Only on RadicalFPV