Hi all,

If I understand Return to Home correctly, it is set to GPS coordinates. What if the home base is moving, for example if it's on a boat? Is it possible to instruct Return to Home to return to wherever the controller is?

Chris

The RTH sends the aircraft back to the home point where you originally took off from. If you are on a boat you can just keep resetting the home point to either the controller if your device has a GPS or to the aircraft.  You can also set the return to home to have her. Since you will be in a boat you were not likely to ever lose signal so the only time return to home would initiate is a low battery.

Actually, if you are on a boat, you don't want the aircraft to return to where the RC unit is located, as in most cases you will not want it to land automatically anyway, better to hand catch it. The GPS accuracy is not good enough to automatically land on a small target like a boat. Set it to 'hover' instead of return,  then bring it back home manually.

Ken and Geebax are right. If your drone records a homepoint on the floating boat, it would be better to land it manually.

If you are on a smallish lake, you could take off from the shore and if there is a problem that initiates the RTH it will land there. Just be sure the take off point is not too close to anything including the water to allow for gps errors.I always like to consider the "what if's" when setting up RTH. Like what if the RC fails? Hover will work ok until the battery gets too low. Then what? It's gonna land somewhere. It will not land on the boat automatically. Home point is best on land in that case. If you are out to sea, well then you simply risk losing the craft.

Press the button on the app that sets the return to home point to wherever your controller is.

Press the button on the app that sets the return to home point to wherever your controller is.

Ok. So here's a scenario: The controller/pilot is on a constantly moving boat. You perform a flight, then it's time to come "home". You press to reset the home point, and select to return home. The return flight takes 60 seconds. By the time the Phantom is back at the most recently set home point, that home point is no longer accurate or practical, because that point is now on the surface of the water.

Based on what everyone has said, the only way to manage this situation is to manually fly the drone "home". Yes?

It's almost always best to land manually.  The issue is deciding what to set the failsafe RTH to in case of emergency.

chrison600@hotm Posted at 2016-8-21 01:10
Ok. So here's a scenario: The controller/pilot is on a constantly moving boat. You perform a flight, ...

What are you photographing?
Are you filming the boat you are on, other nearby things or are you flying away off in the distance?
Are you able to get the boat to slow down or stop?
(Catching the Phantom will be difficult if you can't)
If your Phantom is nearby, you'll have it in sight anyway and will easily be able to bring it back yourself.
If you have lost sight of the Phantom, reset home to your current location and initiate RTH.
Use the radar display and your telemetry to spot the Phantom as early as possible and cancel RTH to bring it back.
You will always want to cancel RTH and catch the Phantom yourself.
Do not allow it to auto-land.

Operating on the water, you are in an unforgiving environment.
Make sure you are familiar with all the things you will be doing before you try them out on a boat.

ps .. The hover setting is for loss of signal - not RTH

Frankly, I would look very carefully at what you are trying to do, as it is a recipe for losing a drone. It is not the sort of flight you should undertake if you are a novice. If you consider the idea of condstantly updating the home point, it is not at all practical, and I would suggest you will forget to do it anyway under the pressure of trying to get the shot you are after.

If the ship is not under your direct control and cannot be stopped to retrieve the drone, you are in an even worse situation, because if anything goes wrong, you are going to lose the drone. There was an example on here of a pilot who flew off a ferry and once the ferry got clear of the harbour, it sped up, and at the same time, away from shore it encountered head winds that made it near impossible for the drone to even keep up with the ship, much less bring it back and land. In the clip, the pilot barely managed to get the aircraft back, he was lucky.

If you must do it, do not rely on RTH at all, fly the mission manually and bring it back and land it with plenty of battery in reserve.

Finally, this is not something to tackle using a P3 Standard, the range could be a real problem for you. You should only consider a P3 Advanced,m P3 Pro or P4 for this

Larsenandson Posted at 2016-8-20 06:32
Press the button on the app that sets the return to home point to wherever your controller is.

Have not seen this yet, can you give me a brief description on where in the app you can set RTH to return to the controller instead of the GPS location?