I am planning to use my Phantom4 on a boat to film wildlife, the boat will be moving around.  How often does the controller sync it's GPS location with the Phantom, so that is we activate return to home, the Phantom actually lands on the boat and not a prior location the boat was at?

the "return to home" point is set when the aircraft is turned on.
this point will not change during your flight.
2 options for your situation....
1. turn aircraft on before boarding the boat so the phantom will return to dry land.
2. set return to home setting as hover. that way it will hover until you gain signal again.

Or, use an app that does dynamic home point.

alex.wright1992 Posted at 2016-9-9 21:53
the "return to home" point is set when the aircraft is turned on.
this point will not change during  ...

"2. set return to home setting as hover. that way it will hover until you gain signal again."

There is a hover setting for loss of signal behaviour - but contrary to popular opinion there is no way to set hover for return to home.

"How often does the controller sync it's GPS location with the Phantom, so that is we activate return to home, the Phantom actually lands on the boat"

Once only.
You have the option of resetting your home point to the current location of the controller (as long as you have a GPS enabled phone or tablet).
But it would be most unwise to allow RTH to land on your boat.
If you are flying from a boat, hand catching is the only way to  go.

I would be very skeptical changing the Home Point on a boat with so much electronics around the device in mid flight! I would never do it. I also thought initially it would be a great idea for a dynamic Home point option, but that would be too risky. I double check the Home Point prior to each flight, and I do not fly if I can not get the maps working.

Expect the worst scenario: you are about 1 mile away, sunny day with a lot of glare, white seagulls in the air (they all look like P4's from the boat) and then you get the RED DISCONNECTED (as many of us have experienced).  You have no way of controlling the P4.  The P4 will initiate RTH and head back to the place you turned it on.  Now if that was dry land, you are good to go.  But if that was on your boat, Good Luck trying to head back there and locate the P4 so you cancel RTH and land it manually.

Be very careful when flying from boats, especially large steel boats.  We had a P3 and P4 on the boat, and the P4 was way more sensitive to the boat and gave all sorts of "magnetic field" warnings, calibration errors, etc.  I had a big scare with my P4:

I was coming in for landing and the P4 would not come close to the boat for someone to grab it out of the air.  I started panicking because it was just out of reach and I could not figure out why it would not come to the boat...having flown the P2 for years, I didn't realize the P4 was not coming in for landing because of it's obstacle avoidance system.  The battery was at critical warning level so it kept switching into the RTH mode and would fly up away from the boat and try to land where we launched from (the boat had pivoted on the anchor and changed positions).  While in this panic situation, you quickly have to cancel RTH on your display and fly it in quickly before it starts trying to return home again (which would have resulted in a water landing).  Looking back, I will always fly the P4 in backwards for landing now to avoid the P4 from avoiding the boat with it's front facing sensors.   Here's a shot from my post, my drone has gimbal issues:

http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?m ... D368%26typeid%3D368

Be careful on the boat, it's sketchy with an expensive P4.  The P3 was not as stressful as it is much less expensive.  

Hi All,

Thanks for some great advice.

I will look into a 3rd party app, but also be ready for manual landing.

An updated dynamic RTH would be a good feature for updates.

payment@utiladi Posted at 2016-9-10 06:25
Hi All,

Thanks for some great advice.

'An updated dynamic RTH would be a good feature for updates.'

Not really, having the aircraft try to land automatically on a boat is a really bad idea. Especially if the boat is moving.

alex.wright1992 Posted at 2016-9-9 06:53
the "return to home" point is set when the aircraft is turned on.
this point will not change during  ...

Correction, the RTH home point is set when you do a CSC to power on the motors (preparing to launch), not simply turning on the aircraft (at least that is how it is on my P3). I always say that if you can, launch from land so that if anything should happen, it will return there. Otherwise set it to hover and hope you do not lose your control link or drop the RC in the water.

Black Diesel Posted at 2016-9-9 14:24
Be very careful when flying from boats, especially large steel boats.  We had a P3 and P4 on the boa ...

Thank you, great advice!  Thanks for sharing.

Black Diesel Posted at 2016-9-10 03:24
Be very careful when flying from boats, especially large steel boats.  We had a P3 and P4 on the boa ...

the P4 was way more sensitive to the boat and gave all sorts of "magnetic field" warnings, calibration errors, etc.  I had a big scare with my P4
yes, agree with you! p4 vety sensitive
first i do when flying on boat is set drone mode hover when lost signal

payment@utiladi Posted at 2016-9-10 10:00
Thank you, great advice!  Thanks for sharing.

I always have the boat anchored for landing, so  if I want an action shot of the boat in follow-me mode, I leave enough time to stop the boat, reset the anchor and the bring the drone in for a hand catch. Landing on a rolling deck would end in a disaster for sure.

tokenbrit Posted at 2016-9-10 05:19
I always have the boat anchored for landing, so  if I want an action shot of the boat in follow-me mode, I leave enough time to stop the boat, reset the anchor and the bring the drone in for a hand catch. Landing on a rolling deck would end in a disaster for sure.
[view_image]

A good feature would be to have the Phantom return to the remote controller under normal situations where communications between a remote and a phantom is in place.

This would be good if a Return to home became compromised or is mobile like a boat and just wanted it to return to your current position. You could place the remote on deck and use both hands to catch the remote.

Be careful

Mark The Droner Posted at 2017-9-24 02:49
Be careful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOAYTy44uIE

Sorry but she sucks and serves her right for risking without knowing how to fly. I love the inspire 1 and this pilot should not be opertaining one.

Ouch... What a nightmare to see the drone drown...

Mark The Droner Posted at 2017-9-24 02:49
Be careful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOAYTy44uIE

that was painful to watch

I would liked to have seen and heard the video keep going after the swim.  Would have been interesting!