RTH Tactics

[uarts314]

I live and fly in a heavily forested area where the average height of the trees is approximately 125, to 150 feet with almost zero clearings except for the occasional road or driveway.

When I land, I have to hover about 150 or more feet directly above my front yard and make an accurate and complete vertical drop; no room for error.

It makes me very nervous to fly very far from my property because the Phantom very quickly disappears from my view, even though I still have control and video, I become concerned about possibly losing the 5.8 channel causing the auto-RTH to kick in.

What I'm wondering is if RTH kicks in while the quad is away, is it smart enough to maintain altitude, fly to the location and make a straight drop? or is going to come in sideways and clobber a tree?

I know it cannot keep a flight log of how to return; but, does it have basic evasive strategies such as maintaining a good altitude, then drop into the LZ?

Can't experiment with this

 

[hurseyc]

If under 60ft it flies up to 60 ft, turns to head towards home, flies home at 60ft. hovers for a bit, then straight down. +/- 10 ft. radius (about).

If you're above 60 ft. when you go into RTH, same as above but it stays at current altitude until it's above the landing position.

 

[uarts314]

If under 60ft it flies up to 60 ft, turns to head towards home, flies home at 60ft. hovers for a bit, then straight down. +/- 10 ft. radius (about).

If you're above 60 ft. when you go into RTH, same as above but it stays at current altitude until it's above the landing position.

very cool, that sounds fairly safe; I'm sure there are situations that would not work; but, then I could probably blame myself for those. Like descending below the altitude that "got me there".

I've done three practice RTH from straight above and it seems very stable on the descent and the touch-downs are greasers...
Nice job on the software.

Thanks

 

[MrFlats]

Hey bud just FYI. Radio signals get absorbed best in snow covered trees.

We have this problem and it happens often with our communication radios at the Sheriff's office. Granit we are talking to repeaters further away, but the P2V would be the same, just smaller scale.

Jeff

 

[Richhealth]

Sounds like you may be flying fpv often or not line of site since the trees are so high. If so, I'd effeminately recommend a gps tracker as a good insurance policy. Somewhere on this forum I saw someone mentioning a small tracker someone used for their hunting dogs. It was a gps tracker that you can put a sim card in. Then if lost, you send it a text message, and it replys with its coordinates that you can copy into a map application.. Since you wouldn't use this device, but only for an emergency/loss of signal and RTH failure, a prepaid sim card of $10 would last forever. I don't recall what thread I saw it in, or the price but it seemed small enough to strap or velcro on without adding much weight, and I recall it being on ebay for a really good price considering what you'd be insuring with it. I know it wasn't really an address to your question, but I thought you might want to consider it.

Happy Holidays,

Rich

 

[iDrone]

Track that Drone:
http://www.phantompilots.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4955

Merry Christmas!
iDrone