Don’t know about other manufacturers but the DJI drones have a setting where if they lose contact with the remote, they’ll fly to a certain height, return to the launch site, and land by themselves. I believe from what I remember reading, the newer ones will even alert you to when you need to start returning home to ensure you have enough battery to make it. I know mine even takes a picture of the takeoff site upon launch and can land on it automatically even if the site is moving (such as the case if you’re on a boat or something).
Yes the DJI has the ability to RTH if the battery goes low, loss of communications, etc.
More than one owner has had their drone go AWOL when the calculated battery requirement to return home was defeated by a strong headwind the drone was not able to overcome
More than one has drilled itself into a tree when the RTH kicked in and the ascend to XXX feet then return to the "home" point... the problem was the drone was under a bunch of trees with a 90 foot canopy, and when it tried to go to 200' as the first step in RTH if ended up destroyed as there are no sensors on TOP of the drone, and even on newer drones the sensors only function in tripod mode.
The funny stories are guys that tried to use them on cruise ships, the RTH was set to the take of point and not the current location of the controller, then add the magnetic interference and RADAR domes.... and more than one did not make it home.
I need some help if someone is willing to give me some advice. I was flying my drone today at my house just to get an overhead pic when all of a sudden crazy winds picked up and pretty much took my drone away never to be seen again. At about 1000 ft away I lost connection and my remote stated...
mavicpilots.com
Now I had a very sad incident yesterday. I lost my 6 months old Mavic.on way flying returning home. after DJIGO4 indicated RC strong interference. next movement my phone blackout. so I activated RT on my RC. After regaining display. I saw drone stops in midway. estimated was about 300 ft. away...
mavicpilots.com
There was a guy who is a member here, but not active, that bought a brand new drone, took it outside (in class B airspace to boot) never set anything up, the drone took off, and then it took off... so somewhere in Medford there is a drone on a roof or tree..... but that is not the worst, his wife knew it had arrived and rather than admit he lost the brand new $$$$ drone, he bought a second one and had it sent to a friends house next day delivery.....
The amount of technology built into a DJI product is amazing, but like many private pilots, people start getting dependent on technology and when something goes wrong they don't have the skills to recover.