Return To Home In Dark?

[KyserPhoto]

I am curious if return to home works in the dark?
I want to video some fireworks from my backyard so plan on just going straight up about 100' or so but wonder what happens if wind or something happens and it drifts off.
I will not be around people or anything just open field.

 

[RayOZ]

It will not see where it's going. OA would not work.
Go in the day time, determine minimum height to clear any obstacles. That should be the RTH altitude, and when you take off in the dark, make sure you are at that altitude or higher (if it drifts less than a certain distance (20m?), it wouldn't go up to RTH altitude when RTH is triggered, so better to be safe and go above that altitude manually)
As for flying in the dark, find a bright spot to take off and land. Street lamp or the headlights of your car. You can then fly into a darker spot after or turn the headlights off when shooting your video.

 

[KyserPhoto]

I can turn my porch light on, and when I say go straight up I mean lift off and go straight up 100' and stay right there. I just need to get above houses and small tree line.
I just was not sure if return to home needed to see the ground or was more gps. I can easily light up the direct area that it will be taking off from.

 

[borislip]

RTH definitely works in the dark. Obstacle avoidance and precision landing do not. What makes you think it would drift, though? If you think the wind may be strong enough to overpower it - don't fly, cause RTH won't save you. Otherwise the position mode will keep you nice and steady, using the GPS signal.

 

[Top Hat]

Be sure to wait for "HP recorded" prompt, you should be good!

 

[KyserPhoto]

RTH definitely works in the dark. Obstacle avoidance and precision landing do not. What makes you think it would drift, though? If you think the wind may be strong enough to overpower it - don't fly, cause RTH won't save you. Otherwise the position mode will keep you nice and steady, using the GPS signal.

Just very new to flying and hard to believe a drone can stay that steady for any length of time. Wind should be 5 mph or so.

 

[Canuk]

You will be fine as long as your phone app says home point is recorded . It can hover until the battery is dead

 

[borislip]

Just very new to flying and hard to believe a drone can stay that steady for any length of time. Wind should be 5 mph or so.

As long as your drone have GPS reception, it will stay steady. Not as steady as with VPS, but all it means that you will see it move around the same point a little bit, NOT drifting away with a wind. 5mph is nothing, i wouldn't worry unless you get something like 30mph gusts, and even then, you are still likely to be fine on Mavic Pro (from personal experience).

 

[Hayabusa]

You’ll be fine.
As in any case with flying, you make sure your home point is set and your RTH height is always set higher than any possible obstacle around.
Also, these guys handle wind pretty well.
I had mine up in the Utah mountains during some major winds and was fine.
You won’t even notice 5-10 mph winds.
Ave fun and send pics

 

[Marko9219]

I use RTH in the dark all the time

 

[serpa4]

Night flying is very fun. Enjoy it.

 

[El Dedos]

Flew around 10-10:15 on the 4th. I used a bright blue strobe facing down to keep an eye on my position. It didn't
interfere with the video and I took it up to 300+ feet to keep the 5-6 guys shooting stuff off in the neighborhoods from trying to blow it out of the sky with their roman candles. Landing was not a problem. Landed manually
with no RTH although it was recorded. Got some good video, focus was a problem at first but I tapped it when
I focused in on a car dealership about 3000 feet away. Pretty sharp after that. Mavic Pro with low noise props.

 

[bmalachuk]

I RTH in the dark all the time....like getting sunset shots from behind a mountain that frames my town nicely. One thing I've noticed is that the MP will **** near crash into the ground if you are brring it down faster once it is over your home point. Often i push my batteries to about 15%and then ill bring it down manually on sport mode....it comes in very quick and seems to not be able to process quickly enough with the ground sensors. That said, only have to do that in the rare occasions when the RTH sucks down a little more battery than i am comfortable with. I have had one crash where the battery dropped from 10 to 8 to 1%in a matter of about 10 seconds, flying during daylight....

 

[Dragonfly]

It will not see where it's going. OA would not work.
Go in the day time, determine minimum height to clear any obstacles. That should be the RTH altitude, and when you take off in the dark, make sure you are at that altitude or higher (if it drifts less than a certain distance (20m?), it wouldn't go up to RTH altitude when RTH is triggered, so better to be safe and go above that altitude manually)
As for flying in the dark, find a bright spot to take off and land. Street lamp or the headlights of your car. You can then fly into a darker spot after or turn the headlights off when shooting your video.

RayOz, you are way off. Mavic will RTH in the Dark. It uses GPS for RTH not eyes. It also uses ultrasonic sensors for height and obstacles when below 30 feet.
It only uses VPS for colision avoidence and percission landing and this is what won't work at night or in low light. Every thing else is just the same as day.

 

[RayOZ]

RayOz, you are way off. Mavic will RTH in the Dark. It uses GPS for RTH not eyes. It also uses ultrasonic sensors for height and obstacles when below 30 feet.
It only uses VPS for colision avoidence and percission landing and this is what won't work at night or in low light. Every thing else is just the same as day.

I know the Mavic uses GPS to RTH, but OA won’t work in the dark. It’s not the getting home being the issue, it’s the hitting something on the way home.

 

[kidroc]

You should have your height set to a safe altitude then you won't hit anything!!

 

[ICHOTT]

Do a dummy run in dayLight, fly to where you expect to go to in the dark, then RTH, when that works, do it again and close your eyes after pressing RTH, if that works go to the dark side with confidence.
If you don’t do all that and then crash in the dark well hey!

Enjoy ;-)

 

[gnirtS]

RTH will work - its GPS based. What won't work if the LZ is dark is the precision landing feature. It just means you'll lose accuracy. Instead of landing within a few inches it'll land to maybe within 10ft or so (due to the natural inaccuracy of GPS).

 

[jimlips]

I did exactly what KyserPhoto wanted to do on July 4th. I first flew my Mavic around at sunset to get the feel of flying in dim light, then flew around the neighborhood and videoed some fireworks. The Mavic Pro camera worked much better than I thought it would in the low light. However, several times the aircraft stopped, with an obstacle avoidance message. At first, I thought a bird was attacking the drone, but it turns out it was getting confused in the low light, probably from the firework flashes. When I turned OA off, it stopped doing that. But that ONLY happened when it was mostly dark.

 

[RonBower]

I shot our community fireworks display in the manner described above. I was thrilled with how well it worked. My house is on a hill about 200' higher than the launch point for the fireworks. I flew straight up from my driveway, somewhere around 400', which made me almost 600' higher than the fireworks which were 1/2 mile away. Then I flew just a little closer and hovered. When I first went up I got a message saying that the ambient light was too low for OA to work, which was no problem for my situation. I had my iso at 800 and I had a fair amount of noise but Final Cut Pro cleaned that up pretty well. Next year I might try iso 400. RTH worked perfectly as always. I was a little nervous since I hadn't flown at night before, but in hindsight, all I did was go straight up and hover for 20 minutes. Other than small adjustments to the gimbal I just watched the show then landed. It was fun!