Help explain what just happened please

[jsposito]

No.
If you want to go for distance, you need to go at the most efficient speed which is just a fraction less than max speed.
10mph will waste battery without giving much distance.


You spent much of the flight out going quite slowly, not full speed.

Unless you want to lose your Phantom you also need to have a reserve and aim to be back before 20%.

No wonder we need extra batteries - returning to home at 20% or more only gives about 15 minutes of flying time. Only a dual mod battery from Jake when it's available will solve the issue.

Thank you for your observations.

 

[jsposito]

No.
If you want to go for distance, you need to go at the most efficient speed which is just a fraction less than max speed.
10mph will waste battery without giving much distance.


You spent much of the flight out going quite slowly, not full speed.

Unless you want to lose your Phantom you also need to have a reserve and aim to be back before 20%.

I'd like to ask you one more question: If at 10,200 feet distance it used 60% of battery and RTH kicked in at 45% remaining. Unless I have a defective battery i do not understand why RTH did not kick in sooner.
60% to get 10,200 feet - how could 45% be used to get back home?

 

[jsposito]

It looks like you tried very hard to lose your Phantom.
NEVER run the battery down that low - aim to be back on the ground before 20%
The time you are cutting it close is the day you can count on complications that slow you down so aim to always have a reserve.

Yes, you should have turned OA off if you want to go for distance.
You will get about 50% more speed with OA disabled.

You dawdled on the outbound flight with the speed all over the place and never going above 20 mph.
Traveling so slowly, the Phantom is using a lot of it's energy just to hold it up in the air.
The less time you fight gravity the more power you have to make distance.

RTH is a slow driver. You can drive 50% faster (with OA off) than RTH on auto.
Either cancel RTH and drive yourself or just leave it in RTH and push the right stick forward.

You came home at 273 feet.
If you are running low on battery, start your descent while returning rather than get home and then descend.
You got to 512 feet from home at 17:29 ... but then flew away to 2165 feet when the battery was at 7% and kept it in the air for another three minutes !!??
Don't do any more adventurous flying until you understand your Phantom a lot better.

Such good pointers. OA off next time.

 

[Meta4]

If at 10,200 feet distance it used 60% of battery and RTH kicked in at 45% remaining. Unless I have a defective battery i do not understand why RTH did not kick in sooner.

Because you did not go flat out to 40% - you doodled around at low speed for a lot of the trip, wasting a lot of battery.
If you had just gone for distance, you would have gone much further to 4% ... but if you
kept going hard to 40%, you couldn't make it home.

 

[jsposito]

I see, ok thanks.

 

[DanMan32]

I too manually decend when RTH kicks in and I am way above safe RTH altitude. I also figured out I can turn around and RTH backwards if there's still a shot I want to get such as a sunset.
When it says it wants to RTH, I let it unless it is already near me.
Low Battery RTH saved me when I was expecting no signal RTH but didn't realize the AC was still receiving RC. 4 minutes of flight wasted just hovering looking at trees fluttering in wind. Didn't even get any shots of the river with boaters during those 4 minutes.

 

[jsposito]

I too manually decend when RTH kicks in and I am way above safe RTH altitude. I also figured out I can turn around and RTH backwards if there's still a shot I want to get such as a sunset.
When it says it wants to RTH, I let it unless it is already near me.
Low Battery RTH saved me when I was expecting no signal RTH but didn't realize the AC was still receiving RC. 4 minutes of flight wasted just hovering looking at trees fluttering in wind. Didn't even get any shots of the river with boaters during those 4 minutes.

good ideas...tell me, have you ever observed that when in the air at 400ft then rth, the precision to land is somewhat off as compared to rth when the bird is at 200 feet high. Default rth is set at 100 ft.
And the wind is very light. By not being be precise I men off by about 3-4 feet.

 

[tevek]

good ideas...tell me, have you ever observed that when in the air at 400ft then rth, the precision to land is somewhat off as compared to rth when the bird is at 200 feet high. Default rth is set at 100 ft.
And the wind is very light. By not being be precise I men off by about 3-4 feet.

3-4 feet from your set HP is very reasonable considering what is essentially a flying camera. Considering some of the distances I fly, to have it come back to me and need only to take two steps to hand catch it is remarkable.

 

[Meta4]

good ideas...tell me, have you ever observed that when in the air at 400ft then rth, the precision to land is somewhat off as compared to rth when the bird is at 200 feet high. Default rth is set at 100 ft.
And the wind is very light. By not being be precise I men off by about 3-4 feet.

RTH landing accuracy is only as accurate as consumer GPS and not affected by height or wind strength.
Try 10 attempts and you could get 10 different landing locations but most will be within 2-3 metres.
You can cancel RTH and land for yourself too.
If you want precise automated landing, you need the P4 pro which has an extra feature to land within centimetres of launch point.
It's really not that useful but is impressive technology.

 

[jsposito]

RTH landing accuracy is only as accurate as consumer GPS and not affected by height or wind strength.
Try 10 attempts and you could get 10 different landing locations but most will be within 2-3 metres.
You can cancel RTH and land for yourself too.
If you want precise automated landing, you need the P4 pro which has an extra feature to land within centimetres of launch point.
It's really not that useful but is impressive technology.

yes, I see. The pro does have that nice feature..but was not worth the additional $700 for me to have it. I fly with no less that 16 sats, 17 sats by the time I'm in the air.

 

[DanMan32]

I usually don't land via RTH, usually I use RTH to get back near me.