I joined AMA and my local RC club to fly my P3 Pro.  At first, a few raised eyebrows and contant tips on what i should do and should not do.

When the wind picked up to 15 mph, a lot of advice to be careful.

All good, I appreciated the concern and the fact that this was education to a group of die hard RC advocates who did not have much direct exposure to Phantom, and likely just knew about what the media was saying..

So I settle in, taking my time to educate folks..

Then yesterday, my Pro 3 became a rescue drone!

An experienced RC fixed wing pilot lost his beautiful, large plane in the shrub downwind of the flying area.  He asked me to help him, so I did!

We formed a search party.

Pilot put on boots and turned his phone on, staying connected with another RC flyer standing next to me, and relaying instructions.


I took up my Pro 3 in 10 mph+ winds (no problem, mine handles 20 mph just fine).. and sure enough in 10 mins I found his plane about 500 feet from the runway!


I used the POI feature to hover just above the treeline (maintaining visual LOS), and the owner was able to scramble to get there.  It was in a very different location than the owner had imagined.


Only hiccup was that all this searching and guiding needed more than 1 battery, so i had to fly the P3 Pro back, change batteries, and fly back - did not want to take a risk hanging out downwind with 40% battery left.


So, my RC club members now have a new found respect for the Rescue Drone.  I think i can find a dozen planes in a day if we wanted to!


Only question I had.. when i changed batteries and retraced steps, i had to spend some time to find the plane again in the dense shrubbery / swampy area.


Is there a way i can mark a location in memory, and then navigate to it on a future flight?  that would cut down some time for some search and rescue flights.

I would recomend that you use Waypoints to assist in you rescue missions.

Yes, waypoints would be the way to do this.

For quick reference, particularly if you haven't learned how to use waypoints yet, you can look at the map and see where your Phantom is currently located. After changing batteries, you can then fly back to (or very close to) where you were hovering before.

Something kind of like an old-fashioned manual GPS would be nice - just press a button (touch the screen) and record the current position, then fly back to said position later. A piece of cake with a hand-held GPS - used to do it all the time with my sailboat.

Thanks all.  Will definitely try out waypoint next time.