I have been trying to reach the lake 1.5km away at the back of our house. Tried over a dozen times. So far, no luck. At 1.4km or shorter,  I would lose connection. On one occassion I thought I had reached it but video/camera feed fooled me. On yesterday's session, I thought this was the moment, the moment I had lost my Spark. With winds of 38-46km/hr and gusts of 65-76km/hr (according to UAV), I thought the winds had blown away the spark when it hovered at 1.4km away (for 2-3 minutes) and 55% battery left and all attempts at RTH had yielded a message "Return to Home Failed" and a seemingly frozen screen. Somehow only the gimbal wheel responded and I figured all is not lost but I had no idea how far it may have been blown away already,no live feed of the battery left and this might be it.   Then, auto RTH kicked in -- with the beeping sound -- music to my ears-- and saved the day. I was already thinking how to explain this to the wifey.

Just sharing one of the clips along the way on my numerous attempts.

Happy to hear you got your Spark back. Did you check the map ? If you use the map you could turn the AC back towards you and bring it back manually provided your RC still connected

Nice Video. just try it 50m higher, next time

@RaM-UK

I was not sure if the RC was still connected because the video is seemingly frozen at the farthest point of the flight. The buttons on the left side of the screen would blink and blink and not all the time the RTH and land button is there with every blink. Wt_?!!. sheeez. Tried the RTH 4 times and got the message 4x Failed onscreen. At that point, I thought I had lost it -- battery,winds and distance. On reviewing the flight record, it was just hovering at the farthest point for 2 minutes but it was being blown backwards to me by the strong winds. The flight record showed that there were no input from the sticks at that point while it was slightly being blown backwards. The RC is probably connected at this point as the gimbal worked somehow because I tried to do survey the ground whatever.  Shortly thereafter, the auto RTH kicked it while the battery was 35%. These were from the flight record when I reviewed afterwards already.

nice one!
   
   

try out some of those parabolic range extenders (with all due respect to dji's advice to avoid 3rd pty accessories) - they'll get you out to that lake and back every time - also - cheap!

Great footage   

Good news on finding your drone.

Thank you guys.

Will get those parabolic range extenders!

I would recommend you fly your spark when the wind is low. High wind can drain the battery faster. Please ensure that your spark are in the channel with best signal. Thanks for your support.

Nice effect with the grass and good camera speed.

Good one ! well done

I'd say you're very lucky to have made it back. High winds and RTH usually result in a flyway. There's been several cases here where the aircraft speed during RTH isn't strong enough to battle high winds.

great video!