Today during flight, I had a strange return to home behaviour. Drone was at signal limit so started to head back home. But I got signal drop so RTH was initiated. I still got telemetry info and noticed that distance was increasing. Then video came back and sure enough, drone was heading in opposite direction. After a few seconds of trying to cancel it, RTH turned in the right direction. You can see the behaviour around 8:53

https://app.airdata.com/flight/d9cd3ba4107b8d4202e0e601a4e21710/GENERALNotifications&val=detailed

At which point in your flight log was your drone flying home in the wrong direction?

msinger Posted at 2018-9-8 14:13
At which point in your flight log was your drone flying home in the wrong direction?

Like I said, at 8:53

It seems the Mavic was flying home as expected. When the remote controller signal is lost, it first retraces the previous flight path for about 60 seconds. If you do not cancel RTH during the time, it stops after 60 seconds and flies straight back to the home point.

msinger Posted at 2018-9-8 14:31
It seems the Mavic was flying home as expected. When the remote controller signal is lost, it first retraces the previous flight path for about 60 seconds. If you do not cancel RTH during the time, it stops after 60 seconds and flies straight back to the home point.

Really?

I always thought that RTH was straight line to home. What is the advantage/idea of doing the inverse route for a minutes?

Is this only for signal lost? Cause I was with impressions that when pressing manually RTH, it was coming straight

hugoleveille Posted at 2018-9-8 14:35
Really?

I always thought that RTH was straight line to home. What is the advantage/idea of doing the inverse route for a minutes?

Yes, it's a special case for when the signal is lost. See the Mavic Air manual for more details on the RTH special cases.

hugoleveille Posted at 2018-9-8 14:35
Really?

I always thought that RTH was straight line to home. What is the advantage/idea of doing the inverse route for a minutes?

The advantage is that when you fly behind a building and lose signal it retraces flight path rather than flying straight into building on way back.

Aardvark Posted at 2018-9-8 14:45
The advantage is that when you fly behind a building and lose signal it retraces flight path rather than flying straight into building on way back.

It makes sense! Thanks!

hugoleveille Posted at 2018-9-8 14:51
It makes sense! Thanks!

Many have freaked out at this behavior, if Mavic regains signal it will halt RTH for 10 seconds if there is no response from controller it will continue its RTH journey, as ardvark pointed out it a very good failsafe option.

hallmark007 Posted at 2018-9-8 15:36
Many have freaked out at this behavior, if Mavic regains signal it will halt RTH for 10 seconds if there is no response from controller it will continue its RTH journey, as ardvark pointed out it a very good failsafe option.

Definitely a good behaviour. But that was some stressfull seconds seeing the drone fly away with no signal to spare

Hope this post will save a heart attack for other user

Problem solved!