Hi Thwyllo,
I'm new to the world of drones and just joined the Mavic Pilots group yesterday. So take my comments with that in mind. I'm just learning my way around here and noticed your post as one of the most recent and wanted to say hello and and share my two cents. As is the case with any good pilot, you are doing the right thing by pre-planning your flight into a situation that you have not experienced previously.
A couple things I would consider and / or keep in mind before giving this a try would include:
- How far away from you (and the controller) would your "Air" be from you when it went under the bridge?
- Obviously the closer you are to the drone, the less likely it is that you will lose signal.
- Consider your position with the controller during the adventure. Try to position yourself so that the the time the drone would not be in direct line-of-site of the controller would be minimized and of course have a Visual Observer positioned so they are in a position to monitor the bird anytime it would be out of your line-of-site.
- What are the surroundings like?
- For example, is this in a heavily wooded area or would there be clear sky and limited (or no) obstructions around the bridge?
- This would be important in weighing the risks. If you did lose signal and there was little or no obstructions along with clear sky above in the area, the risk involved with an automated Return to Home would be reduced some-what. Of course a RTH being initialized while still under the bridge or with other overhead obstacles nearby could potentially prove disastrous.
- Now I am definitely just thinking out loud here as I am not very familiar with the Intelligent Flight Modes on my Mavic Pro never-mind on the Air. Is there a I.F.M. that may allow you to preset your course under the bridge? It *may* give the drone a little more incentive to follow through and continue out from under the bridge into clear sky if it does lose connection to the controller. At least long enough so that if an automatically initialized RTH were to happen, it would be more likely that it would be clear of the bridge. Again...just thinking out loud as a new guy. I imagine there are far more experienced pilots that can weigh in with hands on experience with this sort of thing.
Good luck and fly safe!
- Scott