Heads up on Return to Home Feature!!

[WaterboylodiCa]

So I learned the hard way yesturday when I could of easily landed as I was 3 ft off the ground right in front of me but I like testing things so I decided to have it return to home and land witch was about 20 ft away from me. So I hit the return to home well here's where everything went bad and I mean bad!! I didnt realize the Mavic Air does not have any obstacle cameras on top and there happened to be a huge tree limb hanging over the road it went straight up hit the branch came down went up shreading the branch LOL and I was panicking tried to stop it but was in a bit of a panic and didnt realize it will ask you to confirm you want to stop I kept hitting the red X and it kept hitting the branch until after about 5 times it shut off and fell about 10ft hit the ground lucky for me really didnt even scratch it. In my mind that's kinda of a design flaw!! Yes I was under a tree but what if there was a banner or a bird really think they need to put a obstacle camera going facing up!!

 

[brass_monkey]

Yup. I think that the more expensive DJI models do have upward facing sensors. I guess that there are size and price compromises with the Air.

 

[Simmo]

Please read the manual!!
A close in RTH will not do what you think it will do.....

 

[DanMan32]

Please read the manual!!
A close in RTH will not do what you think it will do.....

And that I consider a bad design choice.

 

[Gil57usa]

You can and should set the return to home altitude before you fly. It is also your responsibility to be always aware of any obstructions the drone might encounter during flight. You can't blame dgi for the operators bad judgement and lack of awareness.

 

[Neil Reid]

Not piling on, just saying that these drones are very sophisticated. It's essential (not just a good idea) to not just read but really understand what the manual, and the more seasoned folks on this site offer for experience. Impatience and ignorance will get you into trouble.

A final tip if I may from someone fairly new to drones- have a wide open space to learn new things. Understand how to cancel commands. It'll all come to you in time- glad nothing was broken and that you shared your experience on this board for others to learn.

 

[Deleted member 94047]

There is something wrong with your drone or your story. The MA will not climb to return home if it was only 20 feet away from the home point. If it really did that, post your log file.

Edit: Sorry, missed the part about the MA being 3 feet off the ground.

 

[Unknown Pilot]

.

 

[DanMan32]

I know how it works and it's documented. However it's not intuitive and rather complex so my opinion is that it's a bad idea on how it was designed.

 

[Maviac]

I know how it works and it's documented. However it's not intuitive and rather complex so my opinion is that it's a bad idea on how it was designed.

I'm a lawyer and occasionally deal with class action cases. So I'm attuned to bad designs and other things harmful to the public. But come on: the RTH feature is well-documented, and not to attack the original commenter but no reasonable person who read the manual would not know the Mavic Air doesn't have overhead sensors. This is NOT a design defect.

 

[DanMan32]

I'm referring to it landing rather than returning if within quite a number of feet, or not going to RTH height. If it is really close, like within 10ft I get it, but 60ft is not what one would expect to have alternate behavior.

 

[skiptv]

If you can't read manual then take a class on how to fly. Personally the more stories I see posted about crashed and broken drones because of pilot error the happier I am knowing we have thinned the herd a little more.

 

[Unknown Pilot]

.

 

[DanMan32]

Within 10ft or so, sure. But if it's on the other side of a field, I might hit RTH for whatever reason or even lose signal. This would probably work under "normal" RTH rules, but might not work if it goes straight to you at current height, or if it lands where it is. Also likely one might not expect it even having read about it.

 

[Unknown Pilot]

.

 

[Kola]

So I learned the hard way....

I didnt realize the Mavic Air does not have any obstacle cameras on top

The obvious way...

https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/Mavic%20Air/Mavic%20Air%20User%20Manual%20v1.0.pdf

 

[Unknown Pilot]

.

 

[DanMan32]

All of the unexpected RTH behaviour comes from it being 20m or less away. That's well within VLOS so why not fly it home manually.

I think I've activated RTH maybe five times in the eight months I've been flying my Air, and I'm not even sure why.

Well that's you. We all have different styles of operations and reasons for why we might do something and opinions on what the expected action should be.

If it were 20ft, I could go along with that. But 20M which is roughly 60ft, to me that's too far for RTH action to be different from the norm.

 

[MavicMike55]

Thinking about it now, if it's that close to you why would you even consider pressing the RTH button? Why not just land it?

That's exactly what I was thinking!

 

[Kola]

Surely this is the obvious way...

View attachment 83437

True.