I had an unintentional test of RTH yesterday. I was practicing in ATTI mode and it was a little windy. All was well until I was about to hit a small tree and I've taught myself that up is my "panic" move. So that worked fine I missed the tree but the wind caught it and blew toward other trees. So I went up again. By this time the wind was carrying away my Phantom and it was pretty far away and I was getting worried. Best I remember then I switched to IOC homelock (not remembering to switch to GPS) and pulled back on the stick. To my shock it appears the phantom is moving AWAY from me close to out of sight. I put in Course lock mode and pull the stick toward me but for some reason it still doesn't appear that it's coming back. At this point it's almost completely out of sight. Finally I just turn off the transmitter and hope for the best, nothing...
I go in the house to get the keys to the car thinking I'll go look for it but knowing I live in a rural area it's probably gone forever. It takes me a couple of min to find my keys and walk outside when I hear bzzzzzzzzzzz I look up and to my amazement there is the phantom doing what it should do. It hovered high above my head and then landed itself within 2 feet of it's take off point. Perfect.
Lessons I learned.
1. glad I had made sure that home lock worked before aggressive flying. I took 2 min to test all that before beginning flying.
2. Glad my "panic" move is to go higher as if the phantom would have been lower there's no way it would have RTM as there are too many trees and power lines at low altitudes.
3. Don't practice atti mode on windy days as the quad can get away from you pretty quick
4. Probably best in a panic situation to take 3 seconds and stop and look at your controller, if I had, I would have realized I had never switched back to GPS mode and this home lock wasn't going to work
5. Glad I have a RTM feature for newbies like me.
I go in the house to get the keys to the car thinking I'll go look for it but knowing I live in a rural area it's probably gone forever. It takes me a couple of min to find my keys and walk outside when I hear bzzzzzzzzzzz I look up and to my amazement there is the phantom doing what it should do. It hovered high above my head and then landed itself within 2 feet of it's take off point. Perfect.
Lessons I learned.
1. glad I had made sure that home lock worked before aggressive flying. I took 2 min to test all that before beginning flying.
2. Glad my "panic" move is to go higher as if the phantom would have been lower there's no way it would have RTM as there are too many trees and power lines at low altitudes.
3. Don't practice atti mode on windy days as the quad can get away from you pretty quick
4. Probably best in a panic situation to take 3 seconds and stop and look at your controller, if I had, I would have realized I had never switched back to GPS mode and this home lock wasn't going to work
5. Glad I have a RTM feature for newbies like me.