Building my flight time and more faith in my mini 2

[New England Droning]

Went out to my hill for my second flights (2nd day several short ones) and I am on a bald spot but the drone doesn't have to go too far to be out of sight. I saw a short distance away, a small pool that I had not seen while walking in the woods so I lowered down to 13.1' above the surface and was about to rotate to view the surroundings when the dreaded alert came up.
***LOST CONTACT WITH UNIT***
I was afraid that I had actually hit the water. I was about to resign myself that I would be using my DJI refresh sooner than I planned and started walking towards where I thought the pool was.
[{Heres the new faith]
My control unit started beeping RTH had started and the mini 2 was climbing to 392' to return home. I started breathing again and apparently, all was well. (cheering heard from the peanut gallery) once it was descending I took over since it had taken off from a wooded path and could not have gotten back there without hitting trees...

I took off 3 times from this path through the trees this morning. The technique of backing out through nearby objects sounded really neat and I wanted to try it. So I did auto-takeoff and I thought I had the video on (but apparently did not. The drone followed this narrow path out into the clear and climbing up and out but each time I did this the video did not start... So yes, more flight/video time is needed. The height is only 3-5' off the ground and seemed a safe way to practice this technique...

Am I missing anything?

I don't know if this is the place for lessons learned and stories?

Salem MA Drone flyer
Ex AWACS AAST (B707)

 

[DanMan32]

Flying around obstacles such as trees does require skill and so I wouldn't recommend it to a beginner but it looks like you have some hidden talent. Bravo!

I would adjust your RTH height setting to just high enough to clear the tallest obstacle in a beeline flight from anywhere to home point. Otherwise if you are higher than necessary, you may get exposed to higher winds than expected and that the AC can cope with. If you have signal you can lower the altitude (recently you may have to cancel RTH first) but if you went into RTH on loss of signal, you can't.

Don't get too low over water until you get the personality of the MM2. There had been reports of unexpected descent on earlier models when close over water.

 

[New England Droning]

Flying around obstacles such as trees does require skill and so I wouldn't recommend it to a beginner but it looks like you have some hidden talent. Bravo!

I would adjust your RTH height setting to just high enough to clear the tallest obstacle in a beeline flight from anywhere to home point. Otherwise if you are higher than necessary, you may get exposed to higher winds than expected and that the AC can cope with. If you have signal you can lower the altitude (recently you may have to cancel RTH first) but if you went into RTH on loss of signal, you can't.

Don't get too low over water until you get the personality of the MM2. There had been reports of unexpected descent on earlier models when close over water.

That is what I was afraid, had happened. but fortune favored the foolish here... I'm trying to not get too close to things yeat and the path that I'm following is like a tunnel of tree branches but low to the ground and only a short distance from me so I can gauge exactly where I'm at. But I have to pay attention to whether the camera is recording or not... :-( I did the maneuver 3 times and apparently, the video remembers the last setting and started out in the on position. So I took off and turned off the record and then did the maneuver not realizing that I was not capturing the action!!!!! argh!!!!!