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Does Q500 4K have Fly Away protection?

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I believe I understood from the manual that if this bird got out of range it would somehow return to in-range. Can ayyone tell me if this is true.
I am talking about using the standard GPS mode while flying. It seems like a yes.no answer but for understandable reasons I havent tested it out while flying.

Any feedback would be appreciated.
 
If the Q losses the Control signal, it will initiate auto RTH as follows: Rotates the nose of the Q toward the last known location of the ST10. Climbs to the RTH altitude (about 66'), then flies back toward the controllers position. If at any point the control signal is reacquired the Q will stop and hover while waiting for pilot input from the controller. If the signal is not established it will proceed to the home point, rotate the nose away from the controller and descend to somewhere around 10-15'. It will hover there until the 3rd low battery warning and then it will auto land.

Please note:
1. The control signal is separate from the video signal. You will lose video long before you lose the control signal.
2. The controller is always the home point, not the takeoff point. If you move, the home point moves with you.
3. If you lose the video signal, move the right stick in the direction the Green Arrow is pointing. That will bring in home.
4. If you believe the control signal has been lost - switch to Home mode and wait for the Q to fly close enough to go back to Angle mode.
 
Can the RTH height be changed? Trees around here are avg of 85' tall
The best practice is to maintain enough height to clear any obstructions. If auto RTH engages the current altitude is maintained if it's higher than the fixed RTH altitude. It will not descend to a lower altitude during auto RTH. If you use the Home mode always climb first.
 
Using the GUI. Changed mine to 150ft. But was way back in 2015. Don't know if it's still available on newer Q500's I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be.
 
Using the GUI. Changed mine to 150ft. But was way back in 2015. Don't know if it's still available on newer Q500's I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be.
That isn't for the Return Home altitude. You can set the max altitude but not the RTH altitude.
 
I am away on holiday at the moment and haven't got access to my old Q500 to have a look at it. But I know I changed the RTH altitude using the GUI. 66' is just completely useless in most situations. It's one of the first things I did when I got it. I believe you can't alter the maximum height altitude using the GUI anymore, not above 400' anyway, when back in the day you could. Maybe the means to change the RTH has also been discontinued?
 
A couple useful things to remember with drones;

First; Never fly lower than any obstruction that may come between you and your drone. Remaining higher does three things; it assures the drone will maintain link with the transmitter, it assures you will maintain sight of your drone, and it assures the drone will fly over, and not into, an obstruction if RTH is triggered.

Second; If and when RTH is triggered with Yuneec drones, they will all remain at any altitude being flown that is higher than what is set for RTH altitude when RTH is triggered. If being flown higher than The RTH setting they will not descend to the RTH height until it reaches the home point.

In essence, Yuneec drones follow a reasonable safe operating protocol, assuming the operators will too. The only problem with a 66’ RTH height comes when operators fail to follow safe operating practices, allowing the drone to fly lower than obstacles between the drone and the operator.
 
A couple useful things to remember with drones;

First; Never fly lower than any obstruction that may come between you and your drone. Remaining higher does three things; it assures the drone will maintain link with the transmitter, it assures you will maintain sight of your drone, and it assures the drone will fly over, and not into, an obstruction if RTH is triggered.

Second; If and when RTH is triggered with Yuneec drones, they will all remain at any altitude being flown that is higher than what is set for RTH altitude when RTH is triggered. If being flown higher than The RTH setting they will not descend to the RTH height until it reaches the home point.

In essence, Yuneec drones follow a reasonable safe operating protocol, assuming the operators will too. The only problem with a 66’ RTH height comes when operators fail to follow safe operating practices, allowing the drone to fly lower than obstacles between the drone and the operator.
Absolutely correct. But whist operating a drone circumstances can occur where it may be desirable to drop the altitude of your aircraft immediately, sometimes even landing. If a loss of signal happens at this point and auto RTH is triggered, there may indeed be obstacles between the drone and the operator. Terrain may dictate that it might not be possible for the operator to move to get an unobstructed flight path back to the controller. None of us can see into the future, circumstances can and do change during the course of flight. The operator should make every effort to mitigate a bad outcome and one way to to that is set a RTH altitude which is higher than any potential local obstacles.
 
Just fly higher than the obstacles.
That's great advice but an emergency situation may dictate that you have to lower your altitude lower than surrounding obstacles. In a case like that, it would be best practice to set your RTH altitude higher than all surrounding obstacles, regardless.....
 
Every multirotor has performance and system limitations. In this case an inability to alter RTH height is a limitation that is not “hidden” and is well known.

To buy and use something where limitations are either well documented through user forum posts or noted in manufacturer documentation and complain about the limitation afterwards does not reflect well on the user’s decision making.

Additionally, as everything has limitations it might be a good practice to understand those limitations and use products in a manner that aligns with the limitations.

I had a Chroma for a couple years, which employs the same RTH software as the Q-500. Never had a problem but then again I never put the aircraft in a position that could create an RTH obstacle conflict. We have the same type of performance limiting situations with other common products. We don’t buy regular street tires if we intend to drive over 120mph, we don’t fly an airplane into a box canyon that lacks the room needed to turn around if needed, we don’t put 87 octane gas in high compression engines, we don’t process 4k video on slow computers, and the list goes on and on.

To complain about a product limitation after we bought a product we could and should have been aware of before making the purchase is, IMO, a demonstration of stupidity. To complain about the limitation after the product is out of production takes that to a new level.
 
Indeed. New products come to the market and things move on. That is probably the reason why my particular Q500 has stood there gathering dust to for past 18 months unused. I never had a problem with it, never crashed it and never ever got into situation where RTH kicked in.

In this particular situation the OP should keep flying higher than all surrounding obstacles and hope he never gets into a situation where through no fault of his own he may have to lower his altitude lower than those in the local. Or buy a newer more tech equipped drone.
 
......We don’t buy regular street tires if we intend to drive over 120mph.....

:oops: I well remember the SHOCK when I had to replace all 4 tires on my Corvette.....for $2500!
 
  • Wow
Reactions: Mostbestus
Was reading an article about Bugatti the other day and they mentioned a similar tire price. Worse, they had a very low mileage limit that required frequent replacement. The cycle was well under 5000 miles/set.
 
Most Z rated tires are that way. They’ll get really stiff long before the tread wears (unless you track the car) due to the heat cycles on the tires when you’re really running the car hard.
 
I believe I understood from the manual that if this bird got out of range it would somehow return to in-range. Can ayyone tell me if this is true.
I am talking about using the standard GPS mode while flying. It seems like a yes.no answer but for understandable reasons I havent tested it out while flying.

Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks to all for the feedback. I feel better about the RTH capability but will still try to avoid going out of range.
BTW, can anyone give an estimate of what the actual Range is?
I'm sure it will vary by terrain but just an estimate ballpark (is it 500 feet or 1/2 mile).
 
If people were to use the traditional RC definition of control range they would consider it out of control when they could no longer see it well enough to control it. For something the size of an H that works out to between 800-1000’ for the average persons visual acuity. People with extremely good eyesight might make it to 1,200’.

It can be flown further under the best conditions if a clear signal path is maintained but you would be flying through the camera, not visual reference to the aircraft. Everyone should remember that WiFi is not a long range carrier and every obstruction impacts signal strength even at shorter ranges.
 

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