I have a hard time trusting the software as well. I've tested it and it does always work but I cant afford to lose my drone and replace it so i tend to trust myself more than i trust software and gps satellites!
I was flying in Colorado out in the middle of nowhere on a cattle ranch. There was a 14,000 foot mountain range about 4 miles away. Nothing interfered with my signal so I decided to fly as far as I could while carefully watching the signal strength. All was going well and it flew approximately 2.3 miles and I decided that even though I had about 60% signal strength I noticed a statement saying I had enough battery to return home if I did so immediately. It was morning at approximately 9:30 AM and where I was standing on flat ground the altitude over sea level was approximately 6000 feet already. The sun was at my back. I decided to press return to home so that I could concentrate on the camera and know that the drone was headed to me in a straight line. As I watched through my iPhone the drone turned around and stopped. Assuming that my signal was somehow lost slightly I pressed return to home again and it continued to make the familiar beeping sound indicating that it was doing so. I thought the cameras sensors We're confused by the direct sunlight and that it stopped because it recognized the blinding light and could not see potential objects so I tried to turn the drone around and fly backwards home. No response so I tried to lower the altitude no response. I try to fly sideways in a sweep toward my take off location. Nothing. I kept my finger on the joystick for altitude pressed all the way down just in case the signal Awareness woke up. I knew I would no longer make it home so my goal was to drop altitude and landed safely somewhere along the way if I could get it to move. The signal strength still appeared decent and eventually the drone begin to slowly come down so I went with throttle forward as fast as I could toward home. As I neared low battery and knew that it would try to land anywhere I lowered my altitude to 35 feet and I was still moving home rapidly now. The drone needed to land after returning approximately 1.2 miles so I knew I had a decent drive left in my pick up truck to go get it. Fortunately it's settled Saufley in a cow pasture and I carefully chose a spot looking downward where the grass was extremely short. Although this was a close call I got it back with no damage and I tested return to home several times since then. One additional time it completely failed to respond soon after. Since then it has never been a problem and I have tried it at least five or six other times. It seems that the trouble happened when I was quite a distance away so to all of you who fly great distances be careful because apparently signal strength can affect return to home even though that's precisely when it is supposed to do that on it's own!
I apologize for my dictation being butchered by Siri folks. "Softly" is to be substituted for "Saufley" that Siri chose lol. One additional important point. On my iPhone screen I did get a warning that there was an obstacle in the path at an altitude of 286 ft and there were no poles or towers so that gave me for the reason to believe the forward sensing system and camera were communicating that something was in the way. There was absolutely no chance that it was a bird because it was continuous and would not let go of that warning even though I deleted the warning it returned.
Always set the RTH altitude "higher" than obstacles in it's path. Obstacle Avoidance is turned "off" in RTH
That's not what the User Manual says. If obstacle avoidance is turned off, RTH won't turn it on, but RTH shouldn't turn it off, as far as I can tell. I haven't tested it, however.
