January 23, 2024 Lauren Orcinolo

Winter Drone Flying Tips

Winter Drone flying, especially to the beginner can seem like a difficult and arduous task. It doesn’t have to be. As you follow the tutorials we will discuss coupled with amazing Drone suggestions from industry leader DJI Drones, you will feel more comfortable and ready to handle those colder temperatures during the winter months. If you are an experienced drone pilot, you are aware that there are many factors to account for when flying a drone in low temperatures. You have asked yourself, what are safe operating temperatures of my drone in cold weather, can I maintain safe flight of my drone even in strong winds, is there a recommended warm up time prior to using the drone in cold temperatures? These are just a few of the vexations of winter drone flying. We will discuss other items to keep in mind when dealing with the challenging weather conditions found in the winter months.

As the winter months progress and colder temperatures with snowy conditions are more and more on the daily forecast, what can we do as drone enthusiasts to ensure a safe, enjoyable drone flight? Realizing some of the challenges that extreme cold can present to drone operators, let’s look at how we can relieve some of these issues.

Tutorials and Tips

Beginning with the first thing to know when discussing drone flying in winter weather is safety and proper operation of the drone. However, you want to be able to accomplish this and still get high quality performance from your drone. Let’s explore some ideas:

Check the weather conditions prior flying your drone. If you feel for any reason apprehensive about flying under harsh conditions, we recommend avoiding some of those harsh conditions like precipitation or a snowfall if possible. These can damage the drone and cause low quality performance.
Recommended operating temperatures of your drone will most likely tell you not use the drone under 32 degrees. This is a good metric to base your flight preparation off.
Use a landing pad for taking off and landing your drone. You can clear off a set aside space for the pad to easily clean the area from snow an debris prior to flight. This will reduce moisture getting into the gears and gimbal of the drone.
Ensure that you have good visual line of sight of your drone. This will give you more comfort in knowing where the drone is, is it safely in flight and you can activate the “Return to Home” easily to get the drone back safely to your landing pad.
As with many mobile devices and portable devices, many drones use Lithium Polymer otherwise known as LiPo batteries. These drone batteries are great for giving generous amounts of flight time, but cold temperatures can effect the battery temperature, which will decrease the chemical activity and performance of the battery within the drone.
1. In order to avoid the pitfalls of battery performance during cold weather drone flying, we recommend first making sure that you have fully charged batteries.
2. Constantly keep an eye on your battery meter monitor as freezing temperatures can swiftly decrease battery life.
3. Once you have commenced takeoff of the drone, hover for a minute or two to warm up the up. This will allow the battery to build up temperature for your winter drone flying adventure.
Use gloves or hand warmers when operating the drone during winter months. The cold can easily creep into your fingertips and the last thing you want is frostbite.
Use you camera in manual mode. This will give you greater control over your camera settings on the drone’s camera such as white balance, shutter speed, aperture and more to name a few. Auto Focus is a great feature, however, in snowy conditions may result in a dark underexposed still image or video recording. Adjusting the white balance is imperative to get the proper coloring of beautifully lined snowy street scenes after a snowfall.
Properly store your drone during the winter months when not in use. This includes removing the propellers used by the drone, and attach the gimbal clamp during storage. Recommended temperature for storage area for your drone is approximately 77 degrees.
If you are a commercial drone pilot or if you are flying a drone which requires certification to be able to pilot, check the FAA regulations for your local area for any restrictions during the winter months. Some drones can fall under the UAV guidelines and restrictions imposed by the FAA.
Watch some drone videos (many can be found for free online). These will provide even more visually geared tips to winter drone flying.

Drones

We love DJI Drones. DJI a class leader in drones and have been testing and perfecting drone technology for many years.

Our top pick for a great drone from DJI is the DJI Mavic 3 Pro Drone with Fly More Combo and DJI RC Pro. What makes the mini 3 pro drone so great?

The tri-camera system on the DJI Mavic 3 Pro including the high end 4/3 CMOS Hasselblad camera, will get you unparalleled image quality. With HLG dynamic range recording in 4K up to 120fps, these images will show beautifully on the touchscreen drone viewer or even a high end TV.
Great storage availability with up to a 512 GB storage card.
The DJI Mavic 3 Pro Cine has triple camera Apple ProRes codec support. Don’t forget it’s voluminous 1TB SSD and a 10Gbps lightspeed data cable included for amazing storage and data transmission.
This amazing new DJI drone can be used as an FPV drone by purchasing the accessory googles making this a true FPV drone which would require FAA approval to fly.
With the included 43 minutes of flight time per charge, you should have ample time to record tremendous cine premium combo content. We do recommend that you have a spare battery or even a power bank when doing longer lengths video transmissions, or in our specific case flying the drone in cold temperatures.
The fantastic included Active Track function by DJI is where the camera tracks a subject or object accurately. You can choose which object/subject the camera should track.
The DJI Mavic 3 Pro with Tri-Camera System, with an f/2.8-f/11 aperture has a the second camera with the telephoto lens producing two different zoom abilities.
The “Fly More Combo” pack offers the following with your drone: a DJI RC Pro with 1080p high-bright touchscreen, a Battery Charging Hub, an ND Filters Set. Great bang for the buck.

Another of our favorite choices for winter drone flying is the DJI Mini 4 Pro 4K HDR Drone Fly More Combo Plus with RC 2 Remote. Some of what we love about this wonderfully priced drone considering it’s specs are as follows:

Extremely light weight for ease of use as this drone weighs in at less than 249 grams.
The Mini 4 Pro's camera, which is backed by a 1/1.3-inch CMOS sensor featuring Dual Native ISO Fusion, a f/1.7 aperture will get you those high dynamic range photos that you can expect from DJI Air drones.
Shoot 4k HDR videos in 60 FPS and 4K non high dynamic range content in up to a blazing 120 FPS refresh rate.
Slow motion 4K video capturing is also available at up to 100 FPS.
The new and improved noise reduction algorithm of Mini 4 Pro's Night Shots, greatly reduces if not altogether eliminates image noise.
The true vertical shooting capabilities of the DJI Mini 4 Pro allows for vertical recording which is then optimized for social media and smartphone playback. So this is a great drone for vloggers as well.
With a 2x zoom capturing of photos and a 4x zoom range for taking video recordings, rest assured knowing you can get that HDR shot from even a decent distance from your subject or object.
Battery life is rated at 34 minutes on the standard included battery. You can get this up to 45 minutes of battery life by upgrading to the Intelligent Flight Battery Plus.
Download and use the awesome DJI Fly app which can be found in the Appstore on your smartphone, for even great versatility, control and post processing of images.
With advanced features like Waypoint Flight (for image repeatability), Cruise Control to reduce fatigue from usage and advanced Return to Home System, you can’t go wrong with this drone.

Finalizing our drone recommendations is the DJI Air 2S Drone Quadcopter with 5.4K Video. Here are some of the great features which make this drone great for beginners and enthusiasts alike.

A powerful 1-inch CMOS Sensor able to take 20 megapixel photos, so you that high quality image is yours for the taking.
The DJI Air 2S is capable of shooting at 5.4k/30fps and 4k/60fps resolution for video recording. So you get high quality videos popping with vibrancy and accuracy.
Due to it’s ability to record in HDR or High Dynamic Range Resolution, even dimly lit or harsher lighting conditions should be a breeze to shoot in. This will definitely assist you in flying the drone in cold temperatures.
In addition to recording images in the jpeg format, this drone has the ability to shoot in RAW uncompressed files. Then you can use the DJI Fly App for any post processing or editing to your RAW file.
With included advanced smart features like MasterShots and FocusTrack, the DJI Air 2S can turn any drone flying adventure into a memorable and enjoyable experience.
- Mastershots setting on the DJI Air 2S lets you select your subject, and then the drone will film while performing ten different maneuvers in sequence. This keeps your subject center-frame and generates a short cinematic video afterward.
- Focus track, another great feature on this drone, make honing in and following your subject easy, even for if you are new to winter drone flying. They include Spotlight 2.0 so the camera stays centered on a subject or object as you fly in a spiral or take close-up shots.

A large and powerful 3500 mAh battery provides the the long lasting juice needed for this drone. We do still however recommend having spare batteries and/or a power bank for those long flying and recording sessions.
Remember to download the DJI Fly App to get the most out of your new drone.

Conclusion

Winter is upon us, if you are a drone pilot ready to tackle cold weather drone flying ,check out the great selection from DJI drones. Used in tandem with the provided tutorials and winter drone flying will become second nature to you.