Interrupting Return home and landing on the spot

[Bromart]

Just purchased a used Mavic Air (1) and did some test flying. I bumped into the same frustrating problem I had a few times with Mavic Pro.
How to interrupt the automatic Return home (when battery is low) when the drone is right in front of you and you want to land it there?

I almost crashed my new buddy on my first day. Here is how it happens:
I fly the drone 2-3 meters in front of me and take it for a walk on a country road. There's plenty of space, except there are trees around and their branches above me.
Battery goes to 25% and starts beeping but I think there's no rush, because the drone is right there and I can just land it any moment.

Battery goes to 20% and I get the message that the drone has to return home. And then it starts shooting up - towards the branches.
I force it not to ascend, but can't land it because the message blocks the view to the button. I can make it hover 2 m above ground, but it doesn't go lower.
As soon as I release, it starts to rise. I interrupt the return home function, but still can't access landing because the warning message blocks the view.

And then it just starts going up, nothing to do. I try to reverse it to avoid colliding with the branches, but it doesn't respond to the controls.
It hits the branches. Fortunately they are thin and they just shake the drone a bit.. and it finds its balance and way out of the branches.

I give up trying to land it here, because I just can't control it. So I hope there's enough power to let it fly above the trees and return home.
It works out and I still have the drone intact after my first day.

So what should you do in this situation? When you have the drone right in front of you and want to cancel the return home and land it there.

 

[PistonPete]

I believe putting it in Sport mode overrides, but I could be wrong.

 

[Unknown Pilot]

Kill switch.

 

[PistonPete]

Don't know if this helps you.

 

[PistonPete]

Kill switch.

Hi, what would you deem as the Kill Switch? I don't see one in the MA manual.

 

[MavicFlyer]

If you press the “pause“ button (||) on the remote, it stops the drone where it is...some people refer to to it as a kill switch, the user guide does not.

 

[Unknown Pilot]

If you press the “pause“ button (||) on the remote, it stops the drone where it is...some people refer to to it as a kill switch, the user guide does not.

I assumed the pause button was tried and failed. I'd kill the motor.

 

[NOLADG]

Doesn't it give you a 10 second warning? I also had this situation happen when I had my sound off on my iPad and was constantly watching the drone and the device flew up from about 4 ft high and hit a tree canopy at 7-8 feet high.

Also read the screen, when you try to cancel the RTH, I think you have to respond with a Yes. Continuing to press the pause button does not fully cancel it.

 

[Karl D]

Your walking away from the home so you might as well change the low battery setting to just land.

 

[MavicFlyer]

How to interrupt the automatic Return home (when battery is low) when the drone is right in front of you and you want to land it there?

I almost crashed my new buddy on my first day. Here is how it happens:
I fly the drone 2-3 meters in front of me and take it for a walk on a country road. There's plenty of space, except there are trees around and their branches above me.
Battery goes to 25% and starts beeping but I think there's no rush, because the drone is right there and I can just land it any moment.

Battery goes to 20% and I get the message that the drone has to return home. And then it starts shooting up - towards the branches.
I force it not to ascend, but can't land it because the message blocks the view to the button. I can make it hover 2 m above ground, but it doesn't go lower.
As soon as I release, it starts to rise. I interrupt the return home function, but still can't access landing because the warning message blocks the view.

And then it just starts going up, nothing to do. I try to reverse it to avoid colliding with the branches, but it doesn't respond to the controls.
It hits the branches. Fortunately they are thin and they just shake the drone a bit.. and it finds its balance and way out of the branches.

I give up trying to land it here, because I just can't control it. So I hope there's enough power to let it fly above the trees and return home.
It works out and I still have the drone intact after my first day.

So what should you do in this situation? When you have the drone right in front of you and want to cancel the return home and land it there.

What about holding the left stick down? Just because an on-screen button is covered by something on the screen, shouldn't mean the sticks don't work. You also have the "pause" button on the RC.
When it starts to RTH, you can just override it with the left stick down.
As the battery level keeps going down, you get to a point where it tells you that it only has enough power to land...let it land right there.

 

[Manpreet Singh Bhatia]

Hi, exactly the same thing happened to me but I was about 10 m away from drone. The drone just said low battery and then shot to the sky...I was confused as I did not know what to expect next. Then I cancel rth some how. Made to land with the left stick down... Almost had a heart attack since I was on 5th flight and very new

 

[DrizzyDrones]

Honestly I have always preferred to use the controller buttons when i wanna do something that can be done with the controller.. even taking off I always started motors with the sticks. But now i use the auto takeoff for easier hand launching(dont think u can auto take off with button can you? What happens of you press rth button when launching does that initiate auto takeoff) anyway I would think that all u had to do was hit the rth button to cancel the rth and it should have started hovering? Not sure if thats the case with the low battery rth tho

 

[VSA]

RTH caused a serious crash today for my mavic pro. I was on a hike and just practicing in manual mode when the battery went low and it took off returning to home, presumably where I had started it up. It didn't make it and crashed in the woods. I fortunately found the drone but it was broken.

 

[Meta4]

RTH caused a serious crash today for my mavic pro.

Correction: Not understanding what RTH would do and how to prevent that or how to cancel that caused your drone crash.
You could have updated the homepoint so the drone didn't think the homepoint was way back where you launched from.
You could have cancelled the RTH when it started and landed the drone.

 

[VSA]

Nope. I hit pause. Tried to stop it before it strated, etc.

Thanks for not helping, jerk.

 

[Meta4]

Nope. I hit pause. Tried to stop it before it strated, etc.

Thanks for not helping, jerk.

It's too late to help prevent what already happened.
I gave you some information that you could use to prevent repeating the issue.