Well, it finally happened (RTH and it worked!)

[kydan]

So this weekend I was at my parent's house flying around. Of course, I showed off my new FPV setup. I mentioned that my next purchase would be a iOSD mini. It was getting dark, but I didn't care. I had like 6 flights under my belt that day alone.

I went over our house and boom! I lost sight of my poor phantom 1.1.1. Frantically I tried a few thrusts forward in little turns, but no luck. My battery was half way through (per my GoPro video timer that I judge my flight times with currently) so I decided to turn off my transmitter and see if it would return.

It did! Slowly the FPV monitor went from fuzzy to full video and in the distance I heard those beautiful motors churning away.

It landed about 5 feet from where I took off (I had to grab the legs and pull on it because it would have landed on their pool cover). The family erupted with applause.

Oh happy day.

No more out of sight FPV until I get the iOSD mini purchased and installed.

 

[panhygrous pantler]

so I decided to turn off my transmitter and see if it would return.

Why don't you have RTH enabled via the S1 switch?

You can recover control after RTH /Failsafe has been initiated. The manual is a wonderful thing to read.

 

[kydan]

Thanks for the pointer.

 

[DanCH]

so I decided to turn off my transmitter and see if it would return.

Why don't you have RTH enabled via the S1 switch?

You can recover control after RTH /Failsafe has been initiated. The manual is a wonderful thing to read.

Unless you want to use manual mode instead. Then turning off the TX is the only option, as most people replace RTH with manual. Still a good tip for most tho

I had something similar happen to me a few weeks back. I did something profoundly dumb will testing the video TX range. I didn't pay attention to my immediate surroundings.

My phantom was nearly 800m away, which I guess isn't a huge distance, but it certainly feels it when you lose control and then video. I saw it go to Fail safe (through my mini iOSD) just before I lost video. I took my googles off and immediately saw the reason for the loss, I was sat right near a tree and I had sent my phantom behind it. I couldn't see or hear it, but maybe 20 hours (I mean seconds ) later I regained video as saw it heading back. Took control (threw it into Atti mode) so as I could to race it back home.

It's quite a good feeling. I deserved to loss my quad for my quite serious error, but it forgave me and came back home

 

[kydan]

Good to know-=thanks Dan

 

[darwin-t]

I have only flown mine a few times, and have used RTH every time. Maybe someday the novelty will wear off, we'll see.