New way to lose your drone

[Paul Schulze]

This may not be new news but I have never seen a discussion of this before.

I was flying my P3A at an altitude of about 100 m and a distance of 3000 m when I decided to bring her home. I tapped what I thought was the return home button on the DJI GO app screen and instead I had tapped the land icon. The drone drop down to about 15 m before I noticed that it was landing but I was losing contact with the bird from the RC because of the altitude drop. I imediately initiated the return home and had to hope because there was no signal coming back to the RC.

I should have noticed that I had tapped the wrong icon because the slider appeared and I just automatically approved the request without actually reading it.

Yes, I did get the drone back with about 10% battery left, but I was lucky. I don't know if it's just me, but I would like to be able to place the icons on the screen where I wanted them and I certainly would not have the land button by the return home button.

 

[jwmcgrath]

Great ending...

Curious, did you get it back because it CAME back, or because it landed where it was and you went to get it?

True story about the icons and the approvals... I never read the approval sliders any more either because you just get too comfortable with them.

To add to your story, I have a slightly different version of the "accidental complacency" that can happen.

I wanted to try the "orbit" feature over my dad's farm house. I was at high altitude, so I pulled the left stick down to lock knowing it would take a little while to come down. I got distracted for just a few seconds (don't jump on me, at my dad's farm, middle of no where, no danger to anyone, wouldn't happen where concentration was important) and looked up last minute to realize a few more seconds and it was going to land on his roof with no warning...

I read somewhere on here once that someone removed the lock ability of the left stick. That's one circumstance that this might have been beneficial.

 

[Paul Schulze]

It came back on its own as my last command apparently got through.

Yes distractions can be deadly. I was showing my granddaughter the iPad screen so my attention to details was minimal.

 

[pomonabill220]

I like that idea of "customizing" the layout of the soft buttons on the screen.
Putting the RTH and land buttons close to each other is just asking for trouble!

 

[flightschool610]

I want the rth button gone... it's already on my transmitter

 

[Limp Gimble]

I hate the p3s left control stick, it has a lock internal to keep it in the land position or stuck down. It is easy do remove though.

 

[sandman259]

Not sure why you didn't just use the actually button on the remote. I don't even bother with the app one...

 

[sandman259]

I hate the p3s left control stick, it has a lock internal to keep it in the land position or stuck down. It is easy do remove though.

That is easily removed. It's just a little piece of metal held in with a couple screws. Open the transmitter up and take it out. Super easy...

 

[Limp Gimble]

I did that, another cool trick is to flip that handle around 180 and it makes good free tablet holder.

 

[AyeYo]

Still can't wrap my mind around why people risk automated RTH instead of just flying back. RTH is for emergencies, not laziness.

 

[Paul Schulze]

I find RTH very useful when you get far away and start to lose the signal. One tap starts the process of coming home. Once the bird is back into sufficient radio contact, the RTH can be canceled and your back into manual control.

When the drone receives the RTH, it is in its program memory and will come home if you do nothing else. On the other hand if you start pulling back on the controls you can still lose contact and nothing is in the drone's memory to tell it what to do except initiate RTH on its own.

I think of RTH as "peace of mind" as opposed to momentary panic. Some folks panic while others don't, but either way the bird comes home.

 

[macoman]

I find RTH very useful when you get far away and start to lose the signal. One tap starts the process of coming home. Once the bird is back into sufficient radio contact, the RTH can be canceled and your back into manual control.

When the drone receives the RTH, it is in its program memory and will come home if you do nothing else. On the other hand if you start pulling back on the controls you can still lose contact and nothing is in the drone's memory to tell it what to do except initiate RTH on its own.

I think of RTH as "peace of mind" as opposed to momentary panic. Some folks panic while others don't, but either way the bird comes home.

The thing is when you press to RTH... the aircraft consume more energy, which means more battery instead of you controlling the aircraft back home. I never use RTH, unless the aircraft is in a dangerous situation.

 

[Paul Schulze]

Please elaborate on the consuming of more energy.

In my case, energy loss was lower in priority than getting control of the drone.

 

[With The Birds]

Please elaborate on the consuming of more energy.

In my case, energy loss was lower in priority than getting control of the drone.

The comment re energy consumption was likely sighting the fact that RTH speed is significantly slower than that at which the AC provides greatest distance for a given mah consumption (i.e. You would have had significantly more than 10% capacity remaining if you flew home manually at a higher speed than RTH).

 

[Paul Schulze]

I did not realize this. I thought higher speeds would consume more energy as air frictional forces go approximately as the speed squared, e.g., doubling the speed quadruples the air frictional force.

 

[With The Birds]

I did not realize this. I thought higher speeds would consume more energy as air frictional forces go approximately as the speed squared, e.g., doubling the speed quadruples the air frictional force.

Yes, true- you need to factor in however that at the low end of flight speed more energy is applied to defeating gravity than to horizontal displacement. The distance threads tend to reveal optimum speed as will your own trials and the experience of others reported here.

 

[Paul Schulze]

It has been stated that a quad hovering uses more energy than if it has some horizontal motion. However, there seems to be a "sweet spot" speed after which the power consumption goes up. Do we know if DJI was aware of this for RTH?

Source: Flight School 5: Power Efficiency Hover vs. Forward Flight | Quadcopter Flight School

 

[Paul Schulze]

Gravity has to be dealt with both if your hovering or flying horizontally. The difference is the props generate more lift due to the additional air flow in horizontal motion. At some speed, this affect is negated by frictional forces.

 

[Paul Schulze]

We need to find out if DJI set the RTH speed at the "sweet spot" or not. This should probably be on a thread of its own.

 

[FlashBuddy]

We need to find out if DJI set the RTH speed at the "sweet spot" or not. This should probably be on a thread of its own.

We already know the answer is "no". Plenty of threads here that bear this out.