Is there a setting where you can set the RTH to hover and not land when it gets back,, I can see options when the signal is lost but not for general RTH, or would the RTH with loss of signal set to hover cover all RTH scenario's.  

No, there is no such setting. If you are at the home point, you can cancel RTH when your Mavic Air is nearby and manually land it.

Yes it would. what ever your RTH settings are covers all scenarios. One or the other.

ok thanks, now would it hover at the set RTH altitude or drop down and hover

Woe Posted at 11-4 04:45
Yes it would. what ever your RTH settings are covers all scenarios. One or the other.

The RTH setting the OP is referring to is only used when the remote controller signal is lost.

ok, was just thinking if the RTH landing point got screwed up somehow and a setting to set it to hover when it got back giving you the final option to land or not

msinger Posted at 11-4 05:29
The RTH setting the OP is referring to is only used when the remote controller signal is lost.

Understood . Was thinking they meant in general terms.

but as Dirty Bird says you have the option to cancel landing when it gets back and take over,

Dirty Bird Posted at 11-4 05:28
For RTH you can select "Return to Home", "Hover", or "Land".  

This action will occur AT THE POINT RTH IS ENGAGED!

Hover can only be selected for loss of signal RTH .

There are different types of triggers for RTH. You're referring to failsafe i.e. the reaction of the drone when signal is lost. When this is triggered you can hover, land or RTH. Even if you set failsafe as Hover then press the RTH button whilst you have a signal the drone will not hover but return to the home point. Smart RTH and low battery RTH will always bring the drone home.

Hi Raven swe. Thank you for the inquiry and for your support. I am sorry to say that  setting is not available. If the drone is at it's home point you can cancel the return to home and land the drone manually. Have a safe and happy flying.

Just press the pause button before it starts to land.

got it, thanks guys

Dirty Bird Posted at 11-4 11:17
This is true.  I wanted to make the OP aware that choosing Hover for the RTH setting would risk the aircraft staying put until the battery becomes depleted & the bird possibly being lost.

I’ve seen a few lost because of this, can’t see many reasons for using this except when flying VLOS over water on a boat .

It could also come in handy when flying below obstacles (like tree branches). You might not want the drone to attempt to ascend and fly home in such a case.

msinger Posted at 11-4 12:41
It could also come in handy when flying below obstacles (like tree branches). You might not want the drone to attempt to ascend and fly home in such a case.

And indoor flying of course.

Yep! That would be another great place to use that setting if satellites are being picked up while indoors.

raven swe Posted at 11-4 07:52
got it, thanks guys

Hi there, please let us know if you need further assistance, we're here to help. Enjoy and always have a safe flights!

Dirty Bird Posted at 11-4 11:17
This is true.  I wanted to make the OP aware that choosing Hover for the RTH setting would risk the aircraft staying put until the battery becomes depleted & the bird possibly being lost.

would in not just hover UNTIL batter got to RTH level then FAILSAFE RTH would kick in and that always comes back to home point .. no?

Dirty Bird Posted at 11-6 09:27
If you set loss of signal action to Hover or Land & RC contact is lost the aircraft will just hover in place until the battery drops to 10% then land, or land immedilately if set to Land.  

*If flying a Litchi Waypoint mission with Smart-RTH enabled, the aircraft will abort the mission & RTH if the flight computer calculates you only have sufficient power to make it home.

and you have tested this...?

from the manual

Low Battery RTH
The low battery level failsafe is triggered when the DJI Intelligent Flight Battery is depleted to a point that may affect the safe return of the aircraft. Users are advised to return home or land the aircraft immediately when prompted. The DJI GO 4 app will display a notice when a low battery warning is triggered. The aircraft will automatically return to the Home Point if no action is taken after a ten-second countdown. The user can cancel the RTH procedure by pressing the RTH button on the remote controller. The thresholds for these warnings are automatically determined based on the aircraft’s current altitude and distance from the Home Point.
The aircraft will land automatically if the current battery level can only support the aircraft long enough to descend from its current altitude. The user cannot cancel the auto landing but can use the remote controller to alter the aircraft’s orientation during the landing process.
The Battery Level Indicator is displayed in the DJI GO 4 app, and is described below:

controller disconnect RTH is a different mode...

controller disconnect - hover .. I believe only covers the controller disconnect but when the battery low RTH is hit.. I believe it will RTH

DeuceDriv3r Posted at 11-6 09:34
controller disconnect - hover .. I believe only covers the controller disconnect but when the battery low RTH is hit.. I believe it will RTH

It works exactly as @Dirty Bird described above.

When the remote controller signal is lost, RTH is initiated. However, this setting allows the aircraft to hover or land instead of RTHing. When the battery reaches the critically low level, the aircraft will not attempt to RTH again. It will just land where it's hovering.

hallmark007 Posted at 11-4 05:52
Hover can only be selected for loss of signal RTH .

Which seems to me like nightmare scenario....unless I operating a moving boat.

msinger Posted at 11-6 10:26
It works exactly as @Dirty Bird described above.

When the remote controller signal is lost, RTH is initiated. However, this setting allows the aircraft to hover or land instead of RTHing. When the battery reaches the critically low level, the aircraft will not attempt to RTH again. It will just land where it's hovering.

and you have tested this?

my understanding as these are 2 different even settings..

the RC lost setting only applies when RC connection is dropped and 3 options RTH, HOVER, LAND

while in that hover .. another event is tripped .. the battery to low (not low batter) RTH threshold.. it will now do a RTH the way I understand it.

there are multiple different RTH modes, failsafe, user initiated, and battery low initiated after 10 second timeout when RTH battery required equals battery level...

Bluehook Posted at 11-6 10:39
Which seems to me like nightmare scenario....unless I operating a moving boat.

the only time I would set hover on RC loss is for follow me ops where I might be under tree canopies or overhead cover.. its close, I turn around and get it.. indoors as well... or where you would not want it to land like over water.. RTH and hover are the only options over water...

I 'might' select land if its a distant mission and there are building/obstical  that eclipse the altitude you can set or easily attain.. like a mountain... you won't be able to get over it without losing battery power.. but at least the drone is safe..  but for example would not set if I were flying under a bridge and that bridge was over water.. becuse you get under the structure and if you disconnect.. it will land in the water 3 seconds later...

DeuceDriv3r Posted at 11-6 10:51
the RC lost setting only applies when RC connection is dropped and 3 options RTH, HOVER, LAND

Right, that's the only time this setting is used. If you choose hover or land, you are opting out of RTH. The aircraft will not attempt to automatically RTH for the remainder of the flight.

Go ahead and test it. You'll see it works exactly like we're describing

raven swe Posted at 11-4 05:07
ok thanks, now would it hover at the set RTH altitude or drop down and hover

YES it will!

msinger Posted at 11-6 11:03
Right, that's the only time this setting is used. If you choose hover or land, you are opting out of RTH. The aircraft will not attempt to automatically RTH for the remainder of the flight.

Go ahead and test it. You'll see it works exactly like we're describing

well than that is quite clearly not properly described in the manual or the setting itself...

there are multiple failure / status conditions for RTH and when you are setting something that only refers to RC loss it should be clearer that setting something other than RTH disables RTH system wide....

I don't have the stones to send up the mavic are turn off the RC until the battery runs out...

Dirty Bird Posted at 11-6 13:49
You don't need to lose the drone to test this.  Just set RTH to Hover, fly out 100' or so where you can see the drone & it is safe to land, then power off the RC.  The drone will then enter the Hover state until the battery reaches 10% at which point it will land.  You can turn the RC back on at any time if you want to regain control.

and if it goes into atti during that time and I can't get the remote to link up fast enough..... ?

Dirty Bird Posted at 11-6 18:24
In all of my flights i have never had a bird lose satellite lock or drop to ATTI mode.  It would be an extremely rare occurrence for this to happen while flying with an open sky above.  If you lost GPS lock RTH wouldn't work anyway.

I had my mavic pro go into atti mode on its 4th flight...

6000ft away... at 399ft ... trucked out there stopped, rotated a couple degrees to line up my first photo and bam..

log showed the typical compass yaw errors repeat 50 times etc ... then imu working exception .. dropped the 5 bar 20 satellite lock and went into atti... lucky it didn't drop video or RC and flew it back .. a few moments later after the inu reboot.. it re-enabled  p-gps mode

there are more stories of mavics and sparks just bolting off in random directions so I am always wanting to have the RC at the ready to take over...

yes the compass was calibrated.. imu values all green.. no I didnt launch from a metal object or near interference and the area I was flying over was not industrial/power grid etc...

this was just the typical deviation of yaw magyaw as seen in the csvview .. an issue that is plagueing more and more folks.. very previlent evidently since the .04.xxxx firmware release...

bottom line.. I have about 9 active drones and have built and flown well over 20...

I acquired 2 sparks and 1 mavic pro since Sept (nice birthday presents) and honestly.. I  just dont trust these DJI drones ... they flew OK out of the box on the 2017 factory firmware.. but after updateing them.. all 3 are unstable and unreliable.. and no amount of imu/compas cal's have gotten them back to stable...

if I could root them and replace DJI's crap with betaflight I would...

Dirty Bird Posted at 11-6 13:49
You don't need to lose the drone to test this.  Just set RTH to Hover, fly out 100' or so where you can see the drone & it is safe to land, then power off the RC.  The drone will then enter the Hover state until the battery reaches 10% at which point it will land.  You can turn the RC back on at any time if you want to regain control.

this is from DJI ... so if you are right.. and again.. I know that you have been flying these for awhile.. especially your phantom videos.. but if you are correct than this statement by DJI is flat wrong and needs to be corrected.. quite clearly states that if Loss of RC is set to hover and low battery kicks in .. as long as that is set to RTH it will


Failsafe RTH:
Failsafe RTH happens when your drone loses signal for 3 seconds when using the remote controller or 20 seconds if using Wi-Fi. When it kicks in it will do one of three things depending on how you have set it up. Firstly, if you have it set to RTH then it will ascend to the set RTH height and start to fly back to you, and once you get the signal back, then you can cancel it. Secondly, if you have it set to Hover then your drone will just hover in its current position, so you can walk towards it and re-establish your signal. However, if you fail to re-establish your signal and the Battery RTH is triggered then the drone will either return home or land depending on your Battery RTH settings. Thirdly, it can be set to land, so it’ll just land in its current position.

DeuceDriv3r Posted at 11-11 08:10
this is from DJI ... so if you are right.. and again.. I know that you have been flying these for awhile.. especially your phantom videos.. but if you are correct than this statement by DJI is flat wrong and needs to be corrected.. quite clearly states that if Loss of RC is set to hover and low battery kicks in .. as long as that is set to RTH it will

There is something very wrong about that statement, you cannot set low battery RTH to land, unless it’s within 20 mertre of homepoint, on RTH aircraft will only auto land when it hits critical battery .

Dirty Bird Posted at 11-11 09:35
There is no "battery RTH" setting other than a "Smart-RTH" (on/off) toggle.  If you want to be 100% certain test it in the manner I suggested.  You only need to be 100' or so away.  If I think about it I will test it the next time I fly.

in my Go 4 app I have for the Mavic Pro:

one setting under Main -> Advanced -> Remote Control Signal Lost .. RTH, Landing, Hover

one setting under Battery -> Smart Return-To-Home  ->  ON, OFF

these are 2 different settings for 2 different aircraft conditions

at least according to the paragraph that I cut and pasted from the DJI website...

and When I set RC lost to 'Hover' it does not disable or give a warning in the app that smart RTH for low battery will be ignored or turn that setting OFF ...

would appreciate the next time you are in an area that you are comfortable to turn off the RC while you aircraft is running on fumes to test it out..

if it indeed just Hovers on RC lost then force lands than DJI needs to update its documentation.. of course when you kill your RC it needs to be outside the 'land where its is distance' and have a battery level above the auto RTH on the battery bar...

So did anyone ever test this ?

I can see Hover being useful in the cases described above (water, forests, inside) but also when active tracking when you're skiing for instance (with the MA and M2 since they don't have Dynamic Home Point like the MP and Spark).

Does anybody know if I can automatically bring my quadcopter  from take off to hover at about 2 feet above the ground and then I control it manually?