Okay, I did some test flights with my Mini (
original Mini-1) today and its behaviour is still the same as always was.
I can't post the video yet because I still have no high speed internet connection.
If it loses control signal it stops and hovers, pausing for 11 secs to see if it regains signal, before engaging its selected Failsafe option of RTH, Hover, or Land.
Or, if you have full control signal and choose to initiate a RTH, you can push the Home button on the controller or app screen and it pops up a menu choice of,
- if its currently more than 20m away from the Home Position, an option of RTH or Land; or
- if closer than 20m to the Home Position, only Land.
Choose RTH and it starts climbing until reaching 20m height, then turns to face toward the Home Position before continuing to climb to its configured RTH altitude.
If at any point after 20m in its climb you move the throttle stick at all, it stops climbing and heads for Home at its current height, even if there are trees in the way. (
Don't touch the throttle stick unless you truly want this to happen!)
Once it's underway heading Home in a straight line, you can raise or lower its height using the throttle stick, you can yaw it to rotate the camera view left or right, you can speed it up on its straight path Home with forward stick or slow it down and even reverse direction with reverse stick (regardless of which direction it's currently facing), but you
cannot move it to the left or right to deviate from that straight-line path to Home.
Once it has reached a position directly overhead of the Home Point and begun its descent,
now you can move it left or right, forward or back, yaw either direction, slow or stop its descent or even make it climb with throttle application, all control sticks working. But if you release the sticks it will continue its descent to auto-land wherever you've just steered it to,
unless it decides it doesn't like the look of your chosen landing spot and landing-protection kicks in to prevent a full landing. Then it will hover and prompt you for confirmation that you really intend it to land in this swamp.
Anyway, that's the way the original Mini-1 behaves with the most recent firmware and Fly app versions. Other models do behave differently.
The user manual for the
Mini 3 Pro says if, while it is climbing in RTH, you pull the throttle all the way down, the
Mini 3 Pro will stop and hover cancelling RTH. I confirmed that is not the case for the Mini-1. Once higher than 20m, touching the throttle in any way stops the climb and the Mini immediately heads for Home at its current height.
The user manual for the Mini-3 Pro says, once it's in forward flight heading Home in RTH, if you pull the right stick fully back, the
Mini 3 Pro will brake to a halt and hover cancelling RTH. Not so for the Mini-1. If you hold the right stick fully back, the Mini will slow down and eventually reverse direction. Release the stick and it recommences forward flight continuing to head straight Home.
The user manual for the Mini-3 Pro says, if it is more than 50m away from the Home Position when control signal is lost, the
Mini 3 Pro will reverse flying backwards to retrace the previous 50m of its path before doing the standard climb to RTH height and straight path home. That's much fancier than the Mini-1.
It's important to study the user manual for your own model, they're all different, and practise using its various processes so you won't be surprised when something unexpected happens.