RTH worked perfectly & Saved My Bacon

[Dronin]

This past weekend I had been flying my first flights of significant distance. Still only 1000 ft away or so and maybe 100 to 200 ft AGL, but a bold move for me. I only fly line of sight and happen to be in a place where I could easily see that far, I did learn, however, that looking down at the screen and looking back to the sky is an easy way to lose sight of that tiny little speck. At times, it took me a while to find it in the sky.

On one of my flights when I had gotten really comfortable pushing the envelope, my very cowardly version of the envelope, and my screen got real choppy really quickly and dropped the signal. It came in and out shakily, my iPad was out of space and I think that had something to do with it. I was about 800 - 1000ft away and in the very small town I was in, was about 3 or 4 blocks away. There was a tree right in front of me that it was briefly behind the very tip of and somewhere in there I had problems. After incorrectly pressing buttons in a panic, I finally pressed the return to home button. I don't know if pressing it activated RTH or if it was the loss of RC signal, but I waited for what seemed like a long time, probably 30 seconds, and there was my baby, flying to about 75 feet away from me and hovering, because I moved to a field from where I took off. It all happened to fast that hardly thought about it. Now, after thinking about it, I might try to download the flight data and analyze it. I know nothing about that process other than getting the files off of the MP.

I was told there are two ham radio operators in that area and my iPad was almost completely full. The iPad is only used for flying and I did not know that I had to or how to clear the photo cache at that time, I was only manually clearing the video cache. I think it was the hams or the iPad that caused my issue. Does anyone know about the potential problems of ham radios on RC flights? I do not.

I just wanted to give a shout out to RTH, it worked like a charm! I hope I never need it again.

 

[firestars]

Neither the hams or the iPad being full would have caused this.

 

[Lelantos]

Hams are almost certainly going to be using much, much lower frequencies than the Mavic. More likely that wifi would cause problems, and I think the Mavic is pretty robust in that regard.

The high frequencies that the Mavic uses (above 2.4gHz) are very sensitive to things getting in the way.

 

[Jimbo40]

Funny post, I'm still afraid to fly high, think I have 115' under my belt. So I'm also labeled a cowardly flyer but I do go out at least.
glad to hear about your safe return home, and thanks for the laugh.

 

[wez130]

I'm also a fanny, i've got 85m height as my record, but i've not been further than about 20m away yet lol. I'm scared to lose sight of my mavic! I don't have faith in the signals being sent just yet.

 

[Michael Ainsworth]

If you love it set it free.

 

[TTFullTimer]

For sure the sky gets real big when the dot is really small. Actually more elevation will help not harm you. The higher you go within reason the more likely you are to have eyeball line of sight, and radio signal from RC line of sight.

I have been doing all my flying around surrounding mountains. I find it impossible to see the Mavic against the natural variations of the mountains here in Arizona. However, if I follow it well and it is always backed by clear sky not ground I can pick it out pretty well. Longest distance was 1600 feet. Altitude was just enough to keep it well into the sky about 250 feet. And that is with some pretty old eyes that have contacts one for reading and one for driving distances, not extra long range. It was quiet that evening and I could just hear the buzz of the Mavic too.

I really like RTH because I know that if I or the electronics screw up the Mavic is going to attempt a run home. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of programming that is in that tiny little body.

The Mavic controller is so much better than the Phantom 3 Standard or for that matter any of the Phantom controllers. The lack of that little display for when your phone or tablet decides to do some crazy thing or other is a huge help. And I think it fits the hands better. Then there is OccuSync versus the really limited RC of the 3 Standard or even Lightbridge for the more advanced Phantoms.

Just my two cents.

 

[Steve1966]

When I lose sight of it I use the map it shows the direction it traveled and I can tell I am on my way home.
I would be interested in what firmware you are using as when I updated to .500 my distance was cut right down to about 750 meters and video would quit. So I downgraded to
.400 and flew 3km no problem but was going to have to fight wind on way home so turned around but still had 3 bars

 

[Robert Mitchell]

Glad it worked out for you, and you will get more confident over time. 1000 feet out is nothing to scoff at. I tend to loose sight at 250 ft or less depending on the background.

I've been doing this for four years now and still get a heart palpitation when I loose sight of it, even for a split second.

So you guys quit being so hard on yourselves for flying conservatively. Those who are bragging about miles out, without so much as a second though, either have more money than me, or simply have more faith in consumer technology than I do.

btw, 400 feet up makes it pretty darn small also.

 

[Dronin]

When I lose sight of it I use the map it shows the direction it traveled and I can tell I am on my way home.
I would be interested in what firmware you are using as when I updated to .500 my distance was cut right down to about 750 meters and video would quit. So I downgraded to
.400 and flew 3km no problem but was going to have to fight wind on way home so turned around but still had 3 bars

I like the idea of looking at the map. I heard that once before, but I forgot and I need to train myself to do that. My nerves get in the way of my knowledge and common sense until I train myself. I don't know the firmware number, I know that I updated yesterday to the latest and I assume that I was on the prior version before when this happened. I've taken every update since I got it in March.

Thanks for the insight and advice

 

[WEOTN]

On the tiny speck, I've ordered Cree strobes and a set of leg extensions to glue them to, in hopes I can pick it out quicker.

 

[Mavic Ray]

When I start seeing my video become really choppy, I know I'm about to lose signal. Usually the first signal to go out is your video feed. There is a bit of a delay when watching the HD signal strength so usually by the time you see it drop all the way down it might be too late. My emergency procedure for preventing signal loss is to immediately throttle up and gain altitude, provided you are aware that there are no obstacles above you.

 

[Dronin]

When I start seeing my video become really choppy, I know I'm about to lose signal. Usually the first signal to go out is your video feed. There is a bit of a delay when watching the HD signal strength so usually by the time you see it drop all the way down it might be too late. My emergency procedure for preventing signal loss is to immediately throttle up and gain altitude, provided you are aware that there are no obstacles above you.

Great Idea!I am learning something everyday in these forums. Throttling up is good thinking and makes sense. It's counter intuitive in terms of nervousness. Your afraid you're going to lose control, so send it even higher?!? , but in terms of signal strength, yes!, it makes sense.

I am so happy I came here.
Thanks for the advice.

 

[Mavic Ray]

Great Idea!I am learning something everyday in these forums. Throttling up is good thinking and makes sense. It's counter intuitive in terms of nervousness. Your afraid you're going to lose control, so send it even higher?!? , but in terms of signal strength, yes!, it makes sense.

I am so happy I came here.
Thanks for the advice.

Yeah I've learned a lot from this forum as well. I mean I was reading in this forum several months before I even bought my mavic. By the time I got my mavic I didn't even have to read through the manual.

 

[FatherXmas]

Hams are almost certainly going to be using much, much lower frequencies than the Mavic. More likely that wifi would cause problems, and I think the Mavic is pretty robust in that regard.

The high frequencies that the Mavic uses (above 2.4gHz) are very sensitive to things getting in the way.

I'm a ham. The highest frequency hams are allow to operate in here in the US is 2.4gHz. However, at that frequency a very directional antenna would be most likely used for maximum distance. Besides that, not very many folks operate up there, I don't know anyone that does. The hams you mentioned most likely don't operate any higher than 440MHz (me included).