I dare say a few people have lost their drones due to this strange rule for RTH on signal loss. The take off point was less that 20 Metres horizontally away 50 feet (i.e 15 Metres) when it loses signal it does NOT RH (Return To Home), instead it just lands where it is and on this occasion that was just above a tiled roof!
When I visited the same location I made sure I took off from a lot further away and then flew it over to the roof to start the search, knowing I would be safe,
Someone local to me said that they had lost their drone on a roof so I offered to bring my DJI Mini 2 to look for theirs. Basically what happened was they took their drone up to take some photographs and the signal was lost so it went into land mode and because they were only 15 Metres away from the home point it landed on the roof.
I have included the flight data at the start, as you can see it lost signal while it was over the roof of the building and because the take off point was less that 20 Metres away 50 feet (i.e 15 Metres) when it loses signal is does NOT RH (Return To Home), instead it just lands where it is !
Its worth baring this in mind that if you are going to fly over roofs then make sure you are greater than 50 Metres away otherwise if it does have any issues during the flight then it will not bother returning to home, it will instead just land on a roof like this did.
After extensive searching of the roofs we could not find the drone and will have to assume that it probably slipped off the roof after a while and someone picked it up, never to be seen again.
This was recorded early on Saturday morning when the roads were very quiet
Andy
https://youtu.be/seyHhqpeMtI
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I think the best way to work around this is if you know you are going to have buildings etc between you and the drone set the default behaviour on loss of signal to hover.
So many of these instances you look at the data (the maps in particular) and there nearly always seems to be buildings or trees āblockingā the signal between the RC and Drone.
If you only intend working/flying close in these areas youāll have a rough idea where it lost signal and can walk closer to find it and regain control.
We all rely heavily on the tech, but it doesnāt always work.
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Was this a search and rescue mission for Jez @Earwig ās lost drone?
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Yes it was. Nice to meet another local flyer
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Yes the safety features are very good but sometime you simply canāt rely on them.
Itās horrible when you get that dreaded ālost control with aircraftā alert.
Andy
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Iām a big advocate for testing the tech too, have the faith to turn off the controller to see what happens, its scary first time you do it.
We have to trust the tech, but still many drones donāt have the features and 000ās of flights are made in atti with no rth.
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Well done for trying to find it, Iāve watched the video twice but canāt see it, unfortunately thereās a few dark gaps between parts of the building it could have ended up done, or as you say in the video, it fell off and someone has picked it up
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Thanks, I was happy to help as I know how I would feel if Iād lost my drone. Was just 20 min drive.
As regards the dark thin gaps we did actually go down there on foot as could not see with drone, very narrow slots but its wasnāt in there.
Real shame couldnāt find it as that would have been a great result
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I donāt think Iād do that. It feels like trying to crash your car to test out automatic braking. Failsafe is a last resort in the event of a hopefully unlikely event. If for some reason it fails and you canāt reestablish a connection then you might just lose a drone for absolutely nothing. Iād test RTH and just hope that itāll go into it if the link is lost.
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@comedyhunter you have been awarded the prestigious Over and Above badge for going out of your way to help another club member.
Thank you 
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Yes, many thanks to @comedyhunter for his heroic efforts.
Lessons have been learned and more care will be taken in future.
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No probs, happy to help and nice to have met you.
If its set up for it, and the home point has been set correctly, it mostly will.
The amount of flyers I have seen (and heard) using it as the only means for getting back to them never ceases to amaze me.
Yes it will unless you are <20 Metres horizontally from your home point, then it wont, it will just land where it is.
Personally I always manually fly back and dont use RTH.
I have just watched a you tube vid where a guy does this experiment with his mavic 2 or 3. Took off and rose vertical to 20m before flying horizontal. RTH brought him within a foot of the take off point. He then took off and rose to 3m before flying horizontal. RTH brought him back 15 feet from the take off point. Rising first allows the camera to get better images for the RTH feature. Might also help to get better GPS info in built up areas.
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