I my P3A out for the first time this winter. I wanted to cruise the lakes since it was so busy with Ice Fisherman and snowmobilers. About 10 minutes into flight, my Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 crashed. I knew that I had about 10min left on the P3A. I could always restart the tablet and bring it home. But the tablet wouldn't turn on. Now I was panicking. So I did a soft reset and it turned on after a few minutes. I immediately launched Lichi and within seconds, I got visual that she was still hanging in mid air. I guided her back to safety.

So when this happens, can I press RTH, despite the tablet not being turned on? What should be the right thing to do here?

Bump Bump Bump

If your tablet crashes, u want to make sure u r in gps mode (p - switch to the right), let go the controls, see if u can see the aircraft. Confirm the radio still has a green LED (if red, expect RTH to kick in).
If green, restart the app, unplug usb cable if needed, reinitialize the tablet.... keep flying.
If u r too scared to screw with it, make sure u know where u were at what altitude, add some if u need to, hit RTH on the radio, take over control when it's near or let it land in rth mode - even in RTH u still have lot's of control to pinpoint where it lands.
Many options, but I found the most important to confirm radio link, and not panic.
Heck, quite the app sometimes, see what happens. Also, provided u r over 20 meters away (radius) power off the radio, see what the aircraft does.. It should happily kick into RTH, when u see it, power the radio back on, let it continue RTH until u feel comfortable taking over by canceling RTH and bring it in manually.
When comfortable, add ATTI mode to it, the more comfortable u r flying without video, the better in case of an emergency.

You don't need the tablet to be fly.
You still have full control even if you lose your tablet.
Just fly home with the joysticks or use the RTH button.

It's the same as flying an airplane when you lost your instruments; fly the airplane first and foremost. Fly your bird back to papa, memorize the light colors flash patterns on the copter to see what it's telling you.

Labroides Posted at 2017-1-30 15:21
You don't need the tablet to be fly.
You still have full control even if you lose your tablet.
Just fly home with the joysticks or use the RTH button.

Unfortunately, it was a cloudy day. I only had it out by 300-500 feet across the lake so I lost it out of the sky. I couldn't see it. Once the tablet turned on, I could see where the camera was pointing so I knew the vicinity on the lake. Then I pressed RTH. .

I think it's important to remember that pressing RTH only works if you're within range.

The fool proof method when you don't know what else to do is to turn your controller off.  The AC must come home.