Question RE: appropriate RTH altitude

[Glenn Goodlett]

Where I live you are not legal beyond line of site, so you would have already broken the rules by going behind the hill in the first place. I guess this is a shortcoming of routinely use RTH every-flight instead of as a backup for when things go wrong. My drone wont be shooting up to those flight levels unless things go wrong. Where as yours does every flight.

Your right.
Happy flying!

 

[Ender]

Okay, So how is the battery a "dangerous" factor? RTH will allow for remaining battery life and act accordingly. Nothing dangerous there.
Wind strength at altitude can indeed be stronger (Not sure what you mean by Stormy) and is a reason I set mine lower at times. Depending on the wind direction vs flight path it can also be beneficial during RTH.

^Sadly its not thats smart and relying on it is dangerous as well.
If will not know if there is a strong headwind when coming back so the "smart" rth will be triggered too late... NOT good...
It wont manage to come back.

Ender

 

[waverider969]

I recall somewhere that RTH will adjust for higher winds by switching to sports mode or something since some people saw better return in RTH against wind than in manual mode.

 

[Ender]

Hi !
While that would be great i really doubt it, can you provide a link so we can track that back ?

Greetings,

Ender

 

[Atomicbear]

So I've followed numerous crash threads (both here & other forums) & spent a lot of time thinking about the areas I intend to fly near. I do not have any experience with a DJI drone yet.

I totally understand the idea of taking the highest obstacle in the vicinity, adding some extra feet for good measure, and having that be RTH altitude. However common sense that may seem, I'm a little amazed at how many people that logic has eluded or in some way failed.

I won't pretend I'm any more virtuous or sharp so I'm wondering... To simply avoid RTH altitude issues, why not just set it to the highest allowable by law and not worry about it? Is it a battery life thing (eg. too much consumed unnecessarily ascending & descending)?

As an added precaution, change your RTH critical battery % to something higher. (15% - 20% maybe) so you have a "reserve tank". Works for me!