I have my M3 set to return home at the altitude I set. One of my  concerns is I fly in an area where there is a bridge. Today I tried  initiating RTH 5 times from the other side of the bridge and each time  it raised in altitude far above what I had set. Why is this happening?

Hello there BrianKushner. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for reaching out. Kindly please try flying your DJI Mavic 3 to a different location to see if the issue will persist. Kindly please be mindful of the location where steel structures and concrete slabs are located when flying. These structures can caused signal interference that can affect the performance of your DJI drone when flying. Thank you.

DJI Stephen Posted at 4-5 20:24
Hello there BrianKushner. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for reaching out. Kindly please try flying your DJI Mavic 3 to a different location to see if the issue will persist. Kindly please be mindful of the location where steel structures and concrete slabs are located when flying. These structures can caused signal interference that can affect the performance of your DJI drone when flying. Thank you.

Well the drone was clear of any structures by a long shot. I was over a river. The bridge was a 1/2 mile away so it wasn't seeing anything on the sensors. Problem is it was raising the drone to the exact height where it would hit the bridge!!

BrianKushner Posted at 4-5 20:41
Well the drone was clear of any structures by a long shot. I was over a river. The bridge was a 1/2 mile away so it wasn't seeing anything on the sensors. Problem is it was raising the drone to the exact height where it would hit the bridge!!

Can you please provide some more details:
1. What RTH height did you set?
2. How much space was under the bridge (how much distance between the water and the bottom of the bridge)?
3. What height (above the water) was your M3 when you initiated RTH?
4. Was it your hope that the M3 would use exactly this "free space" (under the bridge) to return?

frankymusik Posted at 4-5 23:12
Can you please provide some more details:
1. What RTH height did you set?
2. How much space was under the bridge (how much distance between the water and the bottom of the bridge)?

1. 114 Feet
2. 145 Feet
3 100 feet
4. Well yes. The reason I have it set to 114 instead of 400 is I don't go over bridge I go under. My concern is something happens and the drone returns without my control. Also its only rising to 150 feet or so which is clearly too low to go over bridge and too high to go under. It seems it sets a course for direct impact of the bridge.  I was a good distance  from the bridge when I initiated RTH..

BrianKushner Posted at 4-6 12:00
1. 114 Feet
2. 145 Feet
3 100 feet

Is it not because it is in altitude zone?

Suren Posted at 4-6 12:29
Is it not because it is in altitude zone?

No where I started the RTH was no zone then it was 492 feet zone...no zone near there is under 192 feet...

EDIT: I just saw that you flew under the bridge, so my point below doesn't really stand true. What I would say is that using the RTH is supposed to be a safety net, not a novelty to lazily fly home. The RTH functions do not account for headwind and you might find that at low battery, it will not fly the most efficient route and speed to save battery at critical stages. I've watched countless videos of people losing their drones because they were using the RTH and not flying it back themselves.


I don't use the RTH feature unless it's a genuine emergency, so I am speculating here; The RTH has a 'Smart RTH' which will fly the drone back along a route that it knows that it has been along before. If you flew up to 400ft and over the bridge and then dropped down, initiating the RTH will cause it to take the last known route instead of using the sensors, which aren't always guaranteed to avoid obstacles.

CloudVisual Posted at 4-7 09:06
EDIT: I just saw that you flew under the bridge, so my point below doesn't really stand true. What I would say is that using the RTH is supposed to be a safety net, not a novelty to lazily fly home. The RTH functions do not account for headwind and you might find that at low battery, it will not fly the most efficient route and speed to save battery at critical stages. I've watched countless videos of people losing their drones because they were using the RTH and not flying it back themselves.

I’m not sure the smart RTH uses the same route as a flown out as a hard preference. It seems to favor a minimum height and as direct route as possible.

CloudVisual Posted at 4-7 09:06
EDIT: I just saw that you flew under the bridge, so my point below doesn't really stand true. What I would say is that using the RTH is supposed to be a safety net, not a novelty to lazily fly home. The RTH functions do not account for headwind and you might find that at low battery, it will not fly the most efficient route and speed to save battery at critical stages. I've watched countless videos of people losing their drones because they were using the RTH and not flying it back themselves.

The RTH has a 'Smart RTH' which will fly the drone back along a route that it knows that it has been along before.
...
initiating the RTH will cause it to take the last known route instead of using the sensors, which aren't always guaranteed to avoid obstacles.
You have it all mixed up.
You are thinking of Failsafe RTH, which is what happens when signal is lost  ... and the drone only follows its previous track for 50 metres.
That is not what happened in this case.

When the user initiates RTH, that is Smart RTH.
It comes straight back and it doesn't follow any past track.

Labroides Posted at 4-7 15:26
The RTH has a 'Smart RTH' which will fly the drone back along a route that it knows that it has been along before.
...
initiating the RTH will cause it to take the last known route instead of using the sensors, which aren't always guaranteed to avoid obstacles.

Gotcha, thanks. I really don't use RTH enough to know about it, but handy to know just in case.

I'm going to make a guess here because of something in the manual which looked interesting when I first read it. The detection range for the forward sensor is specified to be .6 to 200 meters. Perhaps the M3 is sensing the bridge and is ascending just enough to avoid it. Have you tried this in another location where there is no obstacle?

GaryDoug Posted at 4-8 18:02
I'm going to make a guess here because of something in the manual which looked interesting when I first real it. The detection range for the forward sensor is specified to be .6 to 200 meters. Perhaps the M3 is sensing the bridge and is ascending just enough to avoid it. Have you tried this in another location where there is no obstacle?

The OP was a lot more than 200 metres from the bridge

GaryDoug Posted at 4-8 18:02
I'm going to make a guess here because of something in the manual which looked interesting when I first real it. The detection range for the forward sensor is specified to be .6 to 200 meters. Perhaps the M3 is sensing the bridge and is ascending just enough to avoid it. Have you tried this in another location where there is no obstacle?

Will try once I have a chance.

Labroides Posted at 4-8 18:15
The OP was a lot more than 200 metres from the bridge

Stop spelling meters wrong ;-)