Altitude question

[Attroll]

This may be a dumb question, but I and not sure.
If I raise my drone to 300 feet, is that 300 feet from where it started on the ground?
I am assuming that this is what it means.

With that said if I start flying at 300 feet, I assume it will stay at that level and does not go up and down as the terrain goes up and down.

 

[MA2 317]

That is correct.

300 feet from launch point and will remain at 300 feet and will not follow the terrain.

If you launch from the top of a hill and fly down below the launch point, it should read a negative altitude.

.

 

[Droning on and on...]

Which complicates following the rules somewhat... the requirement is to stay below 400ft (US), a.k.a. Above Ground Level. You only have data for your height above takeoff location, so if you fly out over descending terrain it's easy to exceed 400ft AGL while the indicated height is less.

Just be aware of this, and give yourself plenty of headroom flying in this situation, say, fly at 200ft indicated.

 

[YorksPhotos]

I am at 380' ASL. I only have 20' above home point if I head over the ocean. You can see the helicopters far below my 400'. Always on the lookout, they do this frequently.