scary situation

[ashtonhess]

so I was just flying about an hour ago. conditions were fine, just a little wet out. small gusts of wind but not close to anything to be worried about. after flying out one way for a bit, getting out around 2200 feet away, I tried to come back by pressing the return to home button. it stayed put, so I canceled and tried again. it still stayed put. so I tried manually, still stayed put. so at this point I am getting worried, my bird is out far away, rain seems to be coming, and I can't get it back. the distance is also getting larger and I'm not touching anything. so I try in atti mode. still can't make it back and at this point i am very nervous and starting to look for any open space to land (I live in quite a wooded area and wasn't around any real open space). the rain is almost here, it's starting to sprinkle a bit, and I'm about ready to land it and book it into the woods to go find it. so I bring it down and try one more time. I was around 270 feet up trying to come back, and I drop to about 100. There are lots of tall trees in the area and I'm almost skimming them. going as fast as the phantom will go, making progress but only at about 4mph. thankfully my battery is still at around 80%. I get it in barley and bring it straight inside.

thought I would just share this and that you need to make sure conditions are good before you go out too far. again there was little to no wind on the ground and I guess that was a completely different story 100 feet up. thankful I got my bird back and from now on I will be more cautious and check up on more weather reports before flying.

by the way I have a p3a, all stock.

 

[Oesau]

Glad it worked out for you - on the face of it, it does sound like the wind was the factor here but difficult to be absolutely sure without knowing the region/met conditions.

You mention that it's a woody area - so were you in a clearing that was protected by trees? The fact that there were approaching rain isn't a good sign of the weather conditions. One way to test in such a condition is to go straight up to the desired alt, if you go to ATTI mode and the wind is stronger higher up then you're certainly going to see the Phantom moving downwind and you can quickly switch back to GPS and make a decision on whether to proceed with the flight.

 

[Meta4]

RTH flies at 10 metres/sec in still air but when you control the Phantom you can fly at 15 m/s.
So don't jet RTH do the driving if you are pushing a headwind or have a low battery situation.
Always be very aware of winds and don't fly away in a strong tailwind because it will make things difficult on the way home.
Much safer to fly away upwind and have an easy trip home with the tailwind.

 

[LuvMyTJ]

Always fly away into the wind and return with it. This site will allow you to enter many parameters to your liking including wind speeds at various heights. Give it a try - UAV Weather Forecast