Hi everyone , new to the world of P3S so please forgive my ignorance, but I have a few questions;
Assume my RTH Altitude is set for 100 meters and the Home point is a few feet infront of me.

(#1) It is my understanding that if the P3S is at lets say 60 meters and I loose RC conection, the P3S will ascend to 100 Meters then fly to the home point and land, is this correct ?

(#2) It is my understanding that if the P3S is less than 20 meters up or within 20 meters of the home point and the RC connection is lost, the P3S will not ascend to the 100 meters   and it will immediatly land where it is at the time of the signal lost. Is this true ?

#3) If #2 is what happens ( re 20 meters)  , is there any way to stop the landing without the the RC Signal ?

#4) If you loose RC connection and GPS ....... Is it a lost P3S ?

Thanks for any all input on this !

(#1)   Yes

(#2)  If your Phantom is less than 20 metres away horizontally, and you activate RTH (why would you?) it will just land where it is.
I don't know where you got the bit about less than 20 metres up.

#3)  Without control signal, you can't change anything.
But if you'd lost control signal, you couldn't have activated RTH and you aren't going to lose signal at less than 20 metres..

#4)  In that situation, the Phantom would just hover because it needs GPS to know where it is and where home is.
But what are you planning to do that would cause you to lose GPS?
If your Phantom has a good skyview, it has GPS.
In three years flying, my Phantoms have never lost GPS.

Thanks Labroides, for your response and the bit about 20 meters up, I read that in the phantom 3 standard user manual, pg 13.
Glad to hear u never lost GPS. I want to use mine on the boat while at sea and the 20 meter issues kinda makes me a bit on edge if the failsafe kicks in because of RC problems and it's 10 meters from the boat and 10 meters off the water and decides to just land right there

Salmonslayer Posted at 2017-3-3 23:28
Thanks Labroides, for your response and the bit about 20 meters up, I read that in the phantom 3 standard user manual, pg 13.
Glad to hear u never lost GPS. I want to use mine on the boat while at sea and the 20 meter issues kinda makes me a bit on edge if the failsafe kicks in because of RC problems and it's 10 meters from the boat and 10 meters off the water and decides to just land right there

Take it from someone that learned the hard way. Flying over open water is a bad idea. You will be on a boat that is constantly moving so the home point will be hard for the Drone to determine. If you are going to fly over open water you need to learn to manually land your Drone, and be very very good at it. There is no room for error. It is not as easy as you would think. I lost a Phantom 3 Pro doing exactly that. I had nailed the landing 100 times before, but just one small gust of wind and it hit the side of the boat and it was in the lake. It happens very quickly.

I hope you have better luck.

(#1) It is my understanding that if the P3S is at lets say 60 meters and I loose RC conection, the P3S will ascend to 100 Meters then fly to the home point and land, is this correct ?

Correct

(#2) It is my understanding that if the P3S is less than 20 meters up or within 20 meters of the home point and the RC connection is lost, the P3S will not ascend to the 100 meters   and it will immediatly land where it is at the time of the signal lost. Is this true ?

it's within 60 meters

#3) If #2 is what happens ( re 20 meters)  , is there any way to stop the landing without the the RC Signal ?

You can press the return to home button again on the controller to cancel the auto landing/return to home

#4) If you loose RC connection and GPS ....... Is it a lost P3S ?

If you loose RC connection then it poses no problem, it will return to home, if you loose GPS however , that could be dangerous, because your quad will go to ATTI mode, so it will drift with the wind. You need to know ATTI and know how to fly in it, so incase of any problems you can fly manually.
BTW never use Return to home, only in case of troubles, always try to get your quad back by using the map!

Thanks Phantom Robin , I have always been using the RTH when I loose track of my drone in the air ...... hmm , why do you feel it should never be used ?
By the way my user manual for the P3S notes the above distance as 20 meters (65 feet) , page 13 of the manual . Do you have something showing 60 meters or is from experience.

Hey TheDenisWagner, I have a lot of manual experience on a RC drone with no GPS and have pretty mastered flying it without GPS, going to attempt practice on  ATTI on my P3S  before I try the water and your 100% on the wind problem when flying manual ..... had many repairs on the manual drone until I got the hang of it.

Thanks for all the info guys !

Salmonslayer Posted at 2017-3-4 09:03
Thanks Phantom Robin , I have always been using the RTH when I loose track of my drone in the air ...... hmm , why do you feel it should never be used ?
By the way my user manual for the P3S notes the above distance as 20 meters (65 feet) , page 13 of the manual . Do you have something showing 60 meters or is from experience.

I'm sorry, your right it's 20 meters
As for the return to home, it has to do with trusting the technology i gues, things could always go wrong, failure of the redundant compass, GPS signal that is weak that could cause problems, it's good practice to never trust a device, you should always trust you more

Just as an FYI, but you can use the simulator, and test all those theories out yourself. At least I know you can with the P4 Pro. Forgive me if you can't do that with the P3.

One side note, as it looks like you have some good answers here. 100 meters for a RTH height is huge, unless you really have a need for it to be so high. I use half that, 50 meters to clear any tall trees. I can give you two reasons way. First the winds could be much stronger at a higher altitude when the drone is only using 2/3 power (RTH speed). Next, if battery % becomes a issue not only could higher winds eat up the battery faster, but it would have to descend from that height to land with a low battery.

WilliamM Posted at 2017-3-4 15:20
One side note, as it looks like you have some good answers here. 100 meters for a RTH height is huge, unless you really have a need for it to be so high. I use half that, 50 meters to clear any tall trees. I can give you two reasons way. First the winds could be much stronger at a higher altitude when the drone is only using 2/3 power (RTH speed). Next, if battery % becomes a issue not only could higher winds eat up the battery faster, but it would have to descend from that height to land with a low battery.

That's good advice

Phantom Robin Posted at 2017-3-4 11:49
I'm sorry, your right it's 20 meters
As for the return to home, it has to do with trusting the technology i gues, things could always go wrong, failure of the redundant compass, GPS signal that is weak that could cause problems, it's good practice to never trust a device, you should always trust you more

Actually, it is a very good idea to practice using RTH from time to time so you know how to deal with it and take control back if and when needed. Having your aircraft choose to go into RTH mode is the wrong time to finds out how it works.

Geebax Posted at 2017-3-5 00:55
Actually, it is a very good idea to practice using RTH from time to time so you know how to deal with it and take control back if and when needed. Having your aircraft choose to go into RTH mode is the wrong time to finds out how it works.

It's always good to practice anything as long as you do it in a controlled manner, so in that sense, your right

Thanks everyone again for your comments

Maxxgold Posted at 2017-3-4 11:53
Just as an FYI, but you can use the simulator, and test all those theories out yourself. At least I know you can with the P4 Pro. Forgive me if you can't do that with the P3.

simulator works on P3 also

Tom24nh Posted at 2017-3-8 15:16
simulator works on P3 also

Besides flight training, Use the onboard flight SIM to drain flight packs as well. ;-)


RedHotPoker

Nobody mentioned it so I thought I would toss this in, there's a setting that allows you to use the position of the controller as the home point. Perfect for a drifting boat.. I've not been brave enough to try this..cheers D

proimages Posted at 2017-3-9 01:26
Nobody mentioned it so I thought I would toss this in, there's a setting that allows you to use the position of the controller as the home point. Perfect for a drifting boat.. I've not been brave enough to try this..cheers D

However it does not continuously set the home point as the boat moves, you have to set the home point manually each time, and it is not that accurate, certainly not that it could land the aircraft on a boat.

Question regarding auto landing, can it be cancelled when activated accidentally on your tablet?

Salmonslayer Posted at 2017-3-24 10:52
Question regarding auto landing, can it be cancelled when activated accidentally on your tablet?

Yes you can de-activate autolanding as you can RTH.

However if you flew into a no fly zone then no. If you are on critical battery then no.

Always have an alternative place to land your drone.

I would not attempt boat landings until I was very familiar with all functions of my aircraft, and have the understanding that I could easily lose my aircraft. And never let the battery get low, if it were me I would be landing with 40% battery (or more) so in case something unusual occurred, I would have enough power left to deal with it. You do not want any auto-landing to occur when on the water!