Hello!  I like many received a drone (Phantom 3 Standard) for Christmas yesterday.  I had thought of purchasing one for a couple of years, but never did it.  It was a wonderful surprise from my family!  I read the manual, studied youtube videos, and surfed the forum for several hours before taking flight.  I flew R/C fixed wing for years, so the concept of the R/C control was rather familiar.  I successfully flew it 8-10 times yesterday.

I do have a few questions and hope that someone can help.  

1.  Today I plan to try atti flight mode.  I understand that if there is no GPS signal the return home and failsafe features will not work.  Is that also true in atti mode?  Or will those features work anyway as long as the aircraft is in contact with satellites.  In other words, if I fly out of range in atti mode and my controller loses contact, will the aircraft return home as long as it has satellite contact, or does it have to be in GPS mode to do that?

2.  I want to play around with "follow me" today.  Is the aircraft limited to a 500m radius from the takeoff point, or will it follow the controller outside of the boundary?

3.  How to download videos to my computer -  I don't have a micro S/D card reader or adapter.  When connect the drone to my macbook via micro usb/usb cable, I don't find the device with video files like I expect to see on my computer.  I assumed the drone/sd card would pop up as a connected device and I could then copy and transfer the files on the SD card.  The drone is powered on.  Do I need to do something with the DJI GO app at the same time?  Not sure what I am missing here.

Thanks in advance for your help everyone!

Congratulations on your new Phantom.  You will have a lot of fun trying out all the stuff it can do.
The 500 meters is range from the controller.  so it will go where you go.  
You have to plug the usb cable into the port on the camera body,  not the drone housing.  It is on the side of the camera.  The sd card with the video is also on the camera body.
You can get low res video off of your device,  by navigating to the dji folder once connected to your computer.
There are lots of people on here who are glad to help out with any questions.  Be sure you specify that your Phantom is a Standard when you post.  The Standard has a lot of differences from the Advanced and the Pro.
The Phantom will initiate the return to home procedure if it loses contact for 3 seconds with the controller.  Be advised,  the home point is always where the Phantom first powered on for that particular flight,  unless you manually set a new home point.  Make sure your RTH height is high enough to clear any obstacles,  because the P3 will rth in a straight line to the home point.  It will not avoid any obstacles.
Have fun and fly safe.

Kneepuck Posted at 2015-12-26 22:47
Congratulations on your new Phantom.  You will have a lot of fun trying out all the stuff it can do. ...

Thanks Knee!  I will try the camera port...makes sense.  

So just to confirm, the the return to home and failsafe WILL work if my Phantom is in atti mode, as long as it has satellite contact.   I just don't want to get out of range in atti mode and lose it!

Oh,  sorry.  Yes,  so long as you have a GPS signal it will rth in A mode.

Depends how you set home point on the distance   Set to you (controller)

frericksjim Posted at 2015-12-27 02:04
Depends how you set home point on the distance   Set to you (controller)

I got all that stuff figured out guys - thanks!  The point of interest and waypoints are pretty neat.   Also I picked up a micro card adapter because the cable was too slow.  

Monopdrone Posted at 2015-12-27 21:42
I got all that stuff figured out guys - thanks!  The point of interest and waypoints are pretty ne ...

One other question.  My DJI Go app limits the radius range of my drone to 500 meters, which is reasonable considering the range is only about 1km.  Do the advanced and professional drones have the same forced range limit of 500m, or do they allow a longer range since the transmitter can apparently handle it?

Monopdrone Posted at 2015-12-28 23:03
One other question.  My DJI Go app limits the radius range of my drone to 500 meters, which is rea ...

Hi ,
If you want to fly further , you'll just need to turn the "Maximum distance" off in the DJI Go App .

DJI-Patrick Posted at 2015-12-29 10:38
Hi ,
If you want to fly further , you'll just need to turn the "Maximum distance" off in the DJI  ...

Cool, thanks.  It was right in front of my face, but I didn't see it.  

I tried the "follow me" out today....pretty cool.  I can't wait to fly and get some good images now that I am a bit more comfortable with the control of it and have an understanding of what it can do.  

Monopdrone Posted at 2015-12-29 12:24
Cool, thanks.  It was right in front of my face, but I didn't see it.  

I tried the "follow me" o ...

Nice to hear that . Look forward to your images .

DJI-Patrick Posted at 2015-12-29 15:50
Nice to hear that . Look forward to your images .

I turned off the 500M limit today and flew out to 700 meters today. Flew over a river and into an adjacent neighborhood.  It was exhilarating!  The pictures are not great because it was dusk, and the photos are actually screen shots from the video.  The first picture is the adjacent neighborhood and the second is looking back toward home base.  

Monopdrone Posted at 2015-12-30 10:24
I turned off the 500M limit today and flew out to 700 meters today. Flew over a river and into an a ...

Thank you for sharing that !  Very nice view !