I own a P3A.  I want to take it with me to the bush and film from "interesting" viewpoints. One scenario has me worried.

My home point (HP) is on top of a hill, and I pilot the P3A down into surrounding valleys. VLOS is maintained, so no problem there. Now if I press the RTH button, what is the drone going to do to get back to the HP ?

The manual is, I think, ambiguous. It says "the aircraft will first automatically ascend to 20m above the current altitude". But there is also a diagram that says "height over HP <= 20m, elevate to 20m". 20m above what reference ???

So if it rises by 20m from current altitude, it will crash into the hill. If it rises by 20m above HP, it will get back safely. Which is it ?

Has anyone tested or come across this and dicovered what the aircraft actually does?

Do not fear, this scenario has been anticipated by the DJI engineers. The aircraft, while down in the valley, will be showing a negative altitude, and if RTH kicks in, it will rise 20 Metres from where it is, then it will climb to the RTH altitude you have set in the aircraft settings. Let us say you have set the RTH altitude to 100 Metres.

So if it was down at -82 Metres when RTH began, it will rise to -62 Metres, then climb up to zero and go past until it reaches +100 metres and then fly home.

Geebax Posted at 2017-2-28 00:16
Do not fear, this scenario has been anticipated by the DJI engineers. The aircraft, while down in the valley, will be showing a negative altitude, and if RTH kicks in, it will rise 20 Metres from where it is, then it will climb to the RTH altitude you have set in the aircraft settings. Let us say you have set the RTH altitude to 100 Metres.

So if it was down at -82 Metres when RTH began, it will rise to -62 Metres, then climb up to zero and go past until it reaches +100 metres and then fly home.

Fantastic !

And thank you for the amazingly prompt response. This forum really rocks !

Yon gotta love it, when the drone outsmarts the drone pilot? ;-)


Yes, it's a tiny brain, built in.


RedHotPoker

First, Hello to all drone pilots!

Interesting topic;

what about reverse scenario;
I'm on the foot of the Hill and fly with the drone on the top, make some "point of interest" circle footage and loose signal...
My RTH altitude is set to 30m and there are 300m altitude for the Drone to climb...

How it will act on his path to home position?

Thomas1974 Posted at 2-27 05:37
First, Hello to all drone pilots!

Interesting topic;

If the drone is lower than the RTH height (measured above the home point), it will climb to the RTH  height and come home.
If it is higher than the RTH height, it will just come home at the height it is at.