so ive been flying for about 8 months now and im pretty comfortable in calm conditions, can do manual acro stuff on my 5inch, freestyle lines feel decent. but the second wind picks up past like 15mph i just fall apart. my lines get sloppy, i overcorrect constantly, and i end up landing before i actually have to because it stresses me out.

i know the obvious answer is just fly in wind more but i feel like im just reinforcing bad habits when i do that. like im not actually learning anything, im just surviving. does anyone have a more structured way they built up their wind flying skills? or is it really just reps

also not sure if this matters but im running betaflight 4.4 with fairly aggressive rates, wonder if dialing those back would help me feel the corrections better in gusty stuff

honestly the rates thing is worth looking at. i used to run really high rates thinking it made me a better pilot but when wind is unpredictable you want finer resolution on your inputs, not less. try dropping your center sensitivity a bit and see if that helps you feel like youre actually in control instead of chasing the wind with big inputs.

as for actually building the skill, what worked for me was picking one specific maneuver and just doing that over and over in wind. not trying to fly a whole freestyle line, just like, a split-s or a tight turn, something repeatable. that way you can actually notice what the wind is doing to that specific input and start to compensate proactively instead of reactively. wind usually comes from a consistent direction in a given spot so you can start to anticipate it a little once you get a feel for the site.

also fly closer to the ground when its gusty if you can do it safely, turbulence is usually worse up high near treelines and buildings. lower altitude in open areas tends to be smoother and you get a better visual reference which helps a lot.

i had the same problem and tbh what helped me most was just accepting that my lines would be ugly for a while. like i stopped trying to fly clean and just focused on not panicking and keeping orientation. once i stopped tensing up the actual corrections got a lot more natural. easier said than done tho lol