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Leaving drone in field and asking it to fly back to new location 1 mile away.

Squerly

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Long title but I didn't know how to otherwise describe what I want to ask.

Anyhow, I live on 50 acres of my own land and am surrounded by 10's of thousands of acres of forest land. At the bottom of my little plot I have a large field, probably 3-4 acres of plush grass.

Does anyone know what would happen if I put the drone in the middle of the field and then, from my house (which is about a mile up the mountain) I lifted off and told it to RTH?

Assuming I have "home" programmed as the location of the controler, will the drone assend to 100' and head on up the mountain to where I (and the controller) am waiting?
 
Assuming you can still connect to the bird it should do just that but if you are on a hill and it is lower then you it just might hit the ground as it travels toward you if you are up higher then 100 feet..
 
Assuming you can still connect to the bird it should do just that but if you are on a hill and it is lower then you it just might hit the ground as it travels toward you if you are up higher then 100 feet..
Ah, yes. the location I would be asking the drone to return to is several hundred feet higher than the liftoff location. So yes, hitting a tree on the way "home" is certainly a possibility unless the drone has avoidance ability and can adjust altitude accordingly.
 
Best to adjust RTH higher for a fail safe flight or this could happen. It would not be hard for Autel to update firmware to use the barometer in most phones to solve this as other manufactures do.

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If you land, but don't turn the motors off, it will retain lift off altitude and will go 100' above your position. If you land and turn motors off, it will reset Home Point and altitude. What Agustine said is accurate with the Evo. It does not know to raise itself when going up a hill. Obstacle Avoidance will stop the Evo from crashing, but it will never reach you.
 
If you land, but don't turn the motors off, it will retain lift off altitude and will go 100' above your position. If you land and turn motors off, it will reset Home Point and altitude. What Agustine said is accurate with the Evo. It does not know to raise itself when going up a hill. Obstacle Avoidance will stop the Evo from crashing, but it will never reach you.
Let me make sure I understand. At the lower field I calibrate the drone and then turn it off. I then go up to the home location (300' higher in elevation than the lower field) and have someone in the field turn the drone back on. Then I lift off, and once it's hovering, hit the RTH button.

Is that what you are saying?

Edit: I guess I'll have to climb up on the roof to maintain good line of sight...
 
Let me make sure I understand. At the lower field I calibrate the drone and then turn it off. I then go up to the home location (300' higher in elevation than the lower field) and have someone in the field turn the drone back on. Then I lift off, and once it's hovering, hit the RTH button.

Is that what you are saying?
Not quite. Every time you turn the motors off, the drone resets altitude. You do not need to turn the drone off for this. I do this all the time to determine the elevation of an embankment and it works great. Also, if you do land in the field and go 300', once you start the motors again, when you hit RTH, it will be assigned to the position you are currently taking off.
 
OK then, from the field, calabrate and fly a bit. Land. Hope in the ATV and drive up to the house. Hit the lift off button, and then RTH. Drone goes up to 400' and comes to the new location. Correct?
 
OK then, from the field, calabrate and fly a bit. Land. Hope in the ATV and drive up to the house. Hit the lift off button, and then RTH. Drone goes up to 400' and comes to the new location. Correct?
It won't. When it takes off, it will set that place as the new RTH spot and not your house.
 
It won't. When it takes off, it will set that place as the new RTH spot and not your house.
I thought I was able to set RTH as either the location the drone takes off from or the location of the controller. Is that not correct?
 
I thought I was able to set RTH as either the location the drone takes off from or the location of the controller. Is that not correct?
It is suppose to, but I haven't been able to get it to work. It simply flies back to take off point.
 
It is suppose to, but I haven't been able to get it to work. It simply flies back to take off point.
If it ever stops raining I'll do a couple of quick tests on that prior to doing the real thing. The field is large enough that I can takeoff from one side, go to the other, and then tell it to come home.

If you see me selling a drone box with accessories, and no drone, you'll know the real thing went poorly... :)
 
lol, the support here is heartwarming... :)
I'm confused. Why use an unreliable RTH mechanism when you can just manually fly the drone back remotely? Fly from home to the remote location. Land. Turn motors off. You could even turn the battery off. Whenever after, have someone turn battery on again, rearm motors remotely from home, and manually fly the drone home. Alternatively, leave the battery on. Then monitor battery state from home. While still enough battery remaining to fly home, remotely rearm motors from home and fly back home.
 
I'm confused. Why use an unreliable RTH mechanism when you can just manually fly the drone back remotely?
With less than 30 flights, I’m new to this and in a learning mode. To be honest, I didn’t consider RTH as being an unreliable mechanism. The more I learn, it seems the majority consider it to be more of an emergency fallback position than a reliable tool.

That being said, my question was based more on a hypothetical than on a need. And although I was serious about trying it, it wasn’t something that I was going to do tomorrow. But to answer your question more directly, I wouldn’t be able to see the drone from my house as the field is at least 3/4 of a mile away and there is nothing but forest between the two areas.

If I was at the house and lifted the drone off from the field, I wouldn’t be able to see it to take over navigation until the drone was at least 250’-300’ in the air. I was hoping that I could just lift off and let the RTH function take it to a safe altitude and then bring it to me, or at least close enough that I could then take it over.
 
Flying back to yourself with map guidance and FPV on your screen should be doable, getting a signal connection 3/4 of a mile away with the EVO on the ground and dense forest in between may be your biggest challenge.
 
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Flying back to yourself with map guidance and FPV on your screen should be doable, getting a signal connection 3/4 of a mile away with the EVO on the ground and dense forest in between may be your biggest challenge.
Probably doesn't make a difference either way, but just for the record, it's an X-Star Premium.
 
Didn’t realize. Probably ALL drones would have some distance limitations when forest is between the drone and your receiver. I get great reception on my 40 acre property until I get about 1200 feet away and try to go low over a pond on the other side of a forested area. Then my signal gets very weak. When I’m up over 150 feet there, no problems.
 
With less than 30 flights, I’m new to this and in a learning mode. To be honest, I didn’t consider RTH as being an unreliable mechanism. The more I learn, it seems the majority consider it to be more of an emergency fallback position than a reliable tool.

That being said, my question was based more on a hypothetical than on a need. And although I was serious about trying it, it wasn’t something that I was going to do tomorrow. But to answer your question more directly, I wouldn’t be able to see the drone from my house as the field is at least 3/4 of a mile away and there is nothing but forest between the two areas.

If I was at the house and lifted the drone off from the field, I wouldn’t be able to see it to take over navigation until the drone was at least 250’-300’ in the air. I was hoping that I could just lift off and let the RTH function take it to a safe altitude and then bring it to me, or at least close enough that I could then take it over.
As long as you can get a remote signal connection to the drone from home, as @jafemu1 stated above, physically seeing the drone is unnecessary. Just ascend straight up to clear all the trees, point it at your house and fly it home using the FPV camera and your eyes and the telemetry. As you stated earlier, you might have to get onto your roof, to achieve the initial LOS signal connection. Good luck!
 
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