A facility operates with respect to a configuration of one or more unmanned aerial vehicles operating as relays between on or more wireless network participant devices and one or more wireless base stations being supported directly or indirectly by a planetary surface. The facility conducts an experiment that yields quality of service results and flight duration results for each of multiple values of a UAV control parameter. The facility selects a value of the UAV control parameter that produced an advantageous tradeoff of quality of service results and flight duration results, and stores the selected value, such that the stored value of the UAV control parameter is usable to operate the UAVs of the configuration in production service.