My first crash land

[Wedgetail]

You no when you first get it out of the box and your in love with it and treat it so carefully knowing the precarious situations that will arise if not concentrating. So now its happened I sorta feel violated but satisfied that I'm past that .... and experienced!!!

RTH went OK till it was a little off coming down from 30m and got a little close to a tree and I tried to back up and got confused with orientation as it was facing me so controls reversed. Tumbled through the leaves and hit the soft ground upside down. Brushed it off restarted it and off it went again no damage at all .....wot a machine!!! ....I'm in love

Lesson 1 learn to orientate better, lesson 2 learn to land manually, Lesson 3 takeoff GPS position not as accurate, lesson 4 allow more clearance for takeoff landing for RTH

Hope this helps others

 

[Indiana_pyro]

Yep

 

[dchao]

I always orientate my drone so it faces the same direction as me. If there is an emergency, our natural instinct is the same way as the drone. Why take the risk and have the control any other way?

 

[With The Birds]

I always orientate my drone so it faces the same direction as me. If there is an emergency, our natural instinct is the same way as the drone. Why take the risk and have the control any other way?

With respect, this is likely a bad habit to learn and poor advice. You are likely significantly better placed if you practice and attain familiarisation with all orientations of flight, it will serve you well.

 

[With The Birds]

You no when you first get it out of the box and your in love with it and treat it so carefully knowing the precarious situations that will arise if not concentrating. So now its happened I sorta feel violated but satisfied that I'm past that .... and experienced!!!

RTH went OK till it was a little off coming down from 30m and got a little close to a tree and I tried to back up and got confused with orientation as it was facing me so controls reversed. Tumbled through the leaves and hit the soft ground upside down. Brushed it off restarted it and off it went again no damage at all .....wot a machine!!! ....I'm in love

Lesson 1 learn to orientate better, lesson 2 learn to land manually, Lesson 3 takeoff GPS position not as accurate, lesson 4 allow more clearance for takeoff landing for RTH

Hope this helps others

Not forming part of your advice/learnings is the consideration that if you insist on relying on RTH to fly home you should make sure you are familiar with how to cancel RTH and regain control.

 

[Pharm]

You no when you first get it out of the box and your in love with it and treat it so carefully knowing the precarious situations that will arise if not concentrating. So now its happened I sorta feel violated but satisfied that I'm past that .... and experienced!!!

RTH went OK till it was a little off coming down from 30m and got a little close to a tree and I tried to back up and got confused with orientation as it was facing me so controls reversed. Tumbled through the leaves and hit the soft ground upside down. Brushed it off restarted it and off it went again no damage at all .....wot a machine!!! ....I'm in love

Lesson 1 learn to orientate better, lesson 2 learn to land manually, Lesson 3 takeoff GPS position not as accurate, lesson 4 allow more clearance for takeoff landing for RTH

Hope this helps others

5. Never let RTH land your AC. Once it's close enough to home, cancel RTH and land manually.

 

[solentlife]

5. Never let RTH land your AC. Once it's close enough to home, cancel RTH and land manually.

100% agree.

As anyone will find GPS is not as accurate as advertisements and they wish you to believe. That is why you are lucky when the AC lands on the exact spot itself ... majority of time it will land near it.

I am a lover of the RTH function, I fly all sorts of RC models and orientation is not a problem for me - but still RTH is a blessing. I will either let it auto initiate on loss of 5.8ghz link or flick S2 to start RTH. I then just listen for that sound ... search the skies for that approaching dot. Once I get it in sight - I know it will be facing me so I then manually fly in choosing my spot carefully.

Some may be interested that I proved to another P3 owner that RTH can still work with P3 facing wrong way ... I let model lose 5.8 link and RTH kicked in. Once I saw the link establish again ... I moved left stick to spin the model round 180 degrees ..... she cont'd flying home but now backwards. Its on one of my videos ... which one I cannot remember now.

Nigel

 

[Wedgetail]

So after RTH initiated and you have regained the link you can orient the drone anyhow and it will still keep coming home? Left right yaw and it will still return? I thought once it reached its RTH position height it then just descended to land and any movement of the control canceled RTH??

 

[ifly2high]

You can yaw and adjust camera angle and adjust height during RTH before disengaging

 

[Tim Dawes]

I use RTH most every time I fly and initiate it with the S2 (easier than searching for the H botton on a hard to view phone). Because I prefer to catch the P3 I terminate the RTH during its descent and finish manually.
When I do land it on the ground I prefer to let the RTH function do it because it deals with ground effect/prop wash better and never tips at point of impact/shutdown which occasionally happens when I land.

 

[Wedgetail]

Thanks guys all good info. Perhaps best to RTH to the set altitude or at least within sight/signal then cancel and bring it down in manual mode and adjust or orientate for a nice slow landing. When its off 500 m its easy to loose orientation and I have been using the map pointer in the bottom left as a guide to get your head around front back left right but all good to listen to what you are doing.

 

[With The Birds]

Thanks guys all good info. Perhaps best to RTH to the set altitude or at least within sight/signal then cancel and bring it down in manual mode and adjust or orientate for a nice slow landing. When its off 500 m its easy to loose orientation and I have been using the map pointer in the bottom left as a guide to get your head around front back left right but all good to listen to what you are doing.

As reliabille as it is I find RTH is best left for emergencies (lost connection, RC failure predominantly). There are instances where you would definitely not want to engage RTH, a misbehaving compass or home point anomaly ring two that come to mind.