How close are your home point landings?

[Malcolm Reynolds]

When returning to home while in P mode, is the collision avoidance turned off? I had mine return to home and descend onto a parked vehicle

 

[Meta4]

I have a question. Why does a Phantom need so many satellites. When people say they have 12 sats, is the Phantom using info from all 12 at the same time. It only takes 3 satellites to get longitude, latitude , and altitude . Now I know that which three satellites it's getting info from will affect accuracy. In my handheld gps units, I can see which satellites it's locked onto and where they are located in the sky. How many channels is a Phantom gps receiver.?

With only 3 satellites, a GPS receiver can only give an unreliable fix which is likely to have a high error (2D fix)
A GPS unit requires 4 sats to give an accurate position fix (but altitude will always be inaccurate and have a high error)
The Phantom requires 6 sats to guard against sats being low on the horizon and have a higher probability of a good spread which gives a better fix.
Fortunately being up in the sky the Phantom should always have more than 6 sats to view unless you have an obscured view of the sky.

 

[Meta4]

When returning to home while in P mode, is the collision avoidance turned off? I had mine return to home and descend onto a parked vehicle

When landing, the Phantom has to come down somewhere.
Whether it's a parked car or the ground, it's all the same to the Phantom.
But there's no need to let RTH do the landing.
You can cancel RTH at any time and resume control.
Most pilots are better than RTH at picking a landing spot.

 

[QuadBart]

I've only engaged RTH a couple time and both times within 10'... Although I thought the landing was a bit on the hard side...

 

[G35 Mass]

Within a few feet for me. Close enough that it never bothered me.

There is no greater accuracy in military GPS as a result of the message signals sent from the satellites; it's a result of the receivers. The GPS used to shove a Tomahawk missile up a camel's behind is slightly more sophisticated than the one we're using in a recreational toy.

Surveyors are using GPS; a quick google search revealed that their accuracy is ~10mm. They're paying $7,000 for the receiver.

 

[Tenly]

When returning to home while in P mode, is the collision avoidance turned off? I had mine return to home and descend onto a parked vehicle

Collision avoidance only looks in front of you. Not to the left, not to the right, not behind you and not below you. That's the biggest reason I see the OA feature as a gimmick as opposed to something useful that can be relied on. Forward facing OA *might* be a useful feature if the drone had a 360 degree gimbal - but without the ability to rotate the camera, there are many cases where the entire drone has to be rotated (yawed) in order to capture the photo or video sequence you want. When the drone is flying sideways or backwards - the P4 obstacle avoidance feature is completely useless.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[Hollywood]

I've had my P4 for almost a week, I've only used RTH once and it landed in the same exact spot it took off from, not even an inch off, it was a concrete pad about the size of the drone and it landed bullseye in the middle.

 

[Spooky Maxwell]

A bit of a poll, how close does your return to home bring your P4?

I'll have 12+ satellites locked in and manually reset the Home point and off she goes, flys a bit and then I do a Return to Home.

I've had it come down 30 feet away - wtf! It can hover with such accuracy, go to way points miles away with great accuracy, track itself over a may with such accuracy.

Why is the return to home so far off? Is it just me?

I had mine come down thirty feet from home point on a tree. When I realized it I was about to pull it up but I was too late. Crashed in a tree and cost me a camera. Most of the time it is within a few feet though.

 

[9245]

I've had both experiences, once I had it come back way the hell off, by maybe 15 yards or so, but usually it is within a couple of feet, a couple were bulls eyes.