Fly your Phantom out a ways and initiate RTH. ( I loose visual on my P3S around 800-1000 feet) . Does it come right back to you +/- a few feet? If you fly out of control range, the aircraft will initiate the same exact RTH sequence. There's no difference in how RTH works whether your Phantom initiated it from loss of signal, or you do (provided you have enough GPS satellites and a proper RTH altitude). I have never had RTH fail on my P3S after about 200 flights and that's often how I bring it home. As others have said, the Phantoms work great if operated properly; most so-called failures, fly-aways, dunking it in water, etc. are pilot error, plain and simple, who prefer to blame it on DJI or a hardware failure, rather than their own. Most fly-aways, lost drones, falling out of the sky, etc. I've read here seem due to flying without fully charged batteries, in high winds, flying where obstacles block your line of sight (and hence control signals), in high interference conditions (even though the Phantom warns you of that) or just being stupid. Fly your drone, enjoy it, experiment with it, and you will get comfortable and build your confidence flying it under various conditions. Lastly, how far out you fly is up to you and whatever you are comfortable with. I seldom fly mine much past line of sight. Now go have some fun!