Can anyone tell me why you would want to stop your rotors in mid-flight?  I was confused when DJI did the firmware update were you pull the left control stick down and to the right and hit the RTH button.  What is the point of this because I'm new to the quads and flying.

Your flying about minding your own business when the Ambulance Helicopter comes screaming round the corner straight towards your drone, you have two seconds to make a decision, sacrifice your drone or perhaps the helicopter. A very extreme example perhaps. But it is purely intended as an emergency cut off. Or you could be on the ground and somebody is about to walk into your rotating blades etc.

Aardvark...perfect.  Totally makes sense now and thank you for not laughing or making fun of me.  

Not at all, it's not an obvious 'feature'.

And hopefully one that would never need to be used.

The much-mentioned scenarios of your Phantom at risk of collision with a helicopter or a mother pushing a pram are fanciful nonsense.
CSC is not for those situations and it would be incredibly rare that anyone would want to execute CSC in flight.
The times you might want to use CSC are much more likely following a crash when you have a Phantom with spinning props on the ground or anywhere else it can cause damage to the Phantom, pets, children or yourself.
CSC is an emergency stop switch and it's quite appropriate that a device with high speed roatting blades has one.  But it's much more for use on the ground rather than in mid-air.

Inquisitive animal approaching spinning props on ground.
Total loss of control of the aircraft, try to fall in a safe place.
Uncontrolled descent, maybe critical battery, into people or animals, maybe better to cut motors before impact.

Thanks Labroides and jstjohnz.  All making more sense.

Alan.  Thanks

Labroides, thank you.

I don't think shutting off the motors mid-flight is ever going to be a good idea as said.  You basically relinquish control of the aircraft by doing so & can do more harm than good.  Panic is always bad.

nigelw Posted at 2016-5-1 08:30
I don't think shutting off the motors mid-flight is ever going to be a good idea as said.  You basic ...

This brings up another question. Once you have shutdown the rotors, assuming you are at an altitude at which you could recover, can you restart the motors?

Just to confirm - pulling the left stick to the bottom-right is still safe, providing I don't hit the RTH button afterwards?

MattG Posted at 2016-5-1 06:31
Just to confirm - pulling the left stick to the bottom-right is still safe, providing I don't hit th ...

You are correct