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Anafi RTH

What if I want my return to home altitude to be more than 20m? That seems very low to me. Say I was flying at 10m and I went around some trees that are 50m tall? That is why I like the way DJI does it and you can set a fixed RTH altitude based on takeoff location. I guess I'll just be extra cautious about losing connection behind tall objects. Let me know if I am getting this functionality wrong.
 
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You got it right!
20m is fixed. In another forum someone asked the Parrot support. They wrote, that 20m is a fixed value for Parrot drones and will not be altered.
 
You got it right!
20m is fixed. In another forum someone asked the Parrot support. They wrote, that 20m is a fixed value for Parrot drones and will not be altered.

Then there's something wrong between the ears of those Parrot Frenchmen. I personally have also written for their consumer service and made aware of the unfortunate at the 20 meter height at RTH. Although it is two weeks since I have not yet received an answer back. :confused:

I would like to suggest everyone, they find their sharp pen and write to Parrot's consumer service and draw attention to the unfortunate relationship with RTH. Perhaps one should mention that's why they would not recommend a friend to buy an Anafi. ;)

Regards Leif.
 
You will not be successful calling the service!
There are reasons for the fixed return hight:
Parrot assumes, that YOU with the Skycontroller are located near the RTH point. In the manual they say it is not good to follow the drone and therefor leave the RTH point.
If Anafi starts its RTH procedure far away from you, then it is impossible, that there are higher trees or other things between you and the drone, because you would not be able to stear the drone behind these trees before, because it would have come out of sight on its flight away from you prior to the RTH. And you are not allowed to fly your drone out of sight.
So with this argumentation a fixed return hight is logic.
 
I disagree with your thoughts on this. Manufactures have been adding adjustable RTH settings now for a few years as it is a safety feature. Yuneec changed theres to allow it, DJI has had it for a long time and 3DR solo also has it just to name a few. Parrot is living in the paste.

Return Home — It’s important to set a high return home altitude to ensure Solo doesn’t hit any obstacles when flying itself back when you hit the “home” button on the controller. We’ve now made it possible for you to adjust the altitude that Solo will climb to when it returns home. If you set a high enough altitude, Solo will be more likely to fly over any obstacles (within reason — not the Burj Khalifa or anything) on its way home. The default return home altitude is 25 m. Here’s how Return Home works.

What many did not realize in the early version of this feature was that the Return to Home had a specific height it would fly at. If you were near any trees or near some type of barrier, you stood a good chance to have your UAV crash. Flexible RTH height is essential safety feature of every drone today.
 
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I beleive the RTH height should be flexible, different circumstances, different locations will demand different settings. I have one area where I fly my Mavic Pro, and if I set RTH at 20m, I would definately be in trouble. I beleive that Parrot should reconsider this setting and allow more flexibility, just create another slider where you can set RTH Height.
 
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You will not be successful calling the service!
There are reasons for the fixed return hight:
Parrot assumes, that YOU with the Skycontroller are located near the RTH point. In the manual they say it is not good to follow the drone and therefor leave the RTH point.
If Anafi starts its RTH procedure far away from you, then it is impossible, that there are higher trees or other things between you and the drone, because you would not be able to stear the drone behind these trees before, because it would have come out of sight on its flight away from you prior to the RTH. And you are not allowed to fly your drone out of sight.
So with this argumentation a fixed return hight is logic.

With all respect, I think you are awful mistakes. It is the customer's desire to buy the product that is essential for how many units are being sold. That's why I'm pretty sure Parrot will listen to if there are many inquiries about RTH.

Furthermore, I wonder how to use the "follow me" function if you can not put RTH so high Anafi does not come across anything if the controller suddenly stops working. The same applies to the use of "flight plan".

Fly safely, Leif.
 
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I am with you as consumer: My desire is also, that Parrot would implement an adjustable RTH hight for Anafi.

But that does not mean, that I am wrong:
Which scenario would you describe, that absolutely requires a variable RTH hight?
- Starting at the RTH point, flying up a nearby hill, you following the drone by foot, then both drone and you downward on the other side of the hill. Now the RTH point is out of sight, means the hill is between you/the drone and the RTH point.
In this Scenario the drone will of course crash on RTH, if the hill is higher than the RTH point + 20m.

But: What I said was, that the described scenario is not the scenario that Parrot had in mind, when writing the manual:
On page 10: "Parrot recommends pilots to take extra care when moving away from the take-off location of their drone (for example to follow ). In such cases, pilots must cancel the auto-RTH from the orange 1-minute alert which appears on the screen of their device, and keep piloting while monitoring closely its battery level, until it runs out of power and lands."
That means that Parrot assumes, that you DON'T follow the drone and stay near the RTH point.

If you like to follow your drone, you have to be very careful.
This is true now with a fixed return hight. But also with a variable return hight you would have to be careful: In the above example you would have to estimate while walking behind your drone, how high the hill is. Then you would have to adapt the RTH hight to the hill's hight + 20m. Difficult to do in an unknown terrain … and if you climb the next hill, you will have to estimate it's hight again ...
Another question:
If I would like to follow my drone by foot (controlled in manual mode!), then I don't really know, why my drone should return to the first starting point: It is possibly far away and I am also far away from it and after the drone's start of RTH I would have to run to the starting point to get the drone back again.

My point therefore is:
1. An adjustable RTH hight in my opinion gives the consumer a certain "safety feeling" and for this reason is "consumer's desire" (and mine!).
2. An adjustable RTH is -realistically speaking- not necessary, if you use the drone as "flying camera" controlled mainly from the starting point and always in sight, like Parrot sees this as normal use (see manual!).
 
Is this a problem? If you are losing signal and the drone is going to RTH it will tell you. There is a big red button at the top of the screen that allows you to stop RTH. The drone will hover, then you can climb to safe height and then press RTH and the Anafi will come back at that height. Simple vigilance should be enough surely. It is not as though the drone drops to 20m. Granted it would be better to set a custom RTH height but it isn't the deal-breaker that is being made out.
 
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I am with you as consumer: My desire is also, that Parrot would implement an adjustable RTH hight for Anafi.

But that does not mean, that I am wrong:
Which scenario would you describe, that absolutely requires a variable RTH hight?
- Starting at the RTH point, flying up a nearby hill, you following the drone by foot, then both drone and you downward on the other side of the hill. Now the RTH point is out of sight, means the hill is between you/the drone and the RTH point.
In this Scenario the drone will of course crash on RTH, if the hill is higher than the RTH point + 20m.

But: What I said was, that the described scenario is not the scenario that Parrot had in mind, when writing the manual:
On page 10: "Parrot recommends pilots to take extra care when moving away from the take-off location of their drone (for example to follow ). In such cases, pilots must cancel the auto-RTH from the orange 1-minute alert which appears on the screen of their device, and keep piloting while monitoring closely its battery level, until it runs out of power and lands."
That means that Parrot assumes, that you DON'T follow the drone and stay near the RTH point.

If you like to follow your drone, you have to be very careful.
This is true now with a fixed return hight. But also with a variable return hight you would have to be careful: In the above example you would have to estimate while walking behind your drone, how high the hill is. Then you would have to adapt the RTH hight to the hill's hight + 20m. Difficult to do in an unknown terrain … and if you climb the next hill, you will have to estimate it's hight again ...
Another question:
If I would like to follow my drone by foot (controlled in manual mode!), then I don't really know, why my drone should return to the first starting point: It is possibly far away and I am also far away from it and after the drone's start of RTH I would have to run to the starting point to get the drone back again.

My point therefore is:
1. An adjustable RTH hight in my opinion gives the consumer a certain "safety feeling" and for this reason is "consumer's desire" (and mine!).
2. An adjustable RTH is -realistically speaking- not necessary, if you use the drone as "flying camera" controlled mainly from the starting point and always in sight, like Parrot sees this as normal use (see manual!).

As someone who is trying to come across as a experienced pilot you have no clue.

If I send my Afani out and do a zig zag type of flight and lose connection it will take the shortest route back to me. If that shortest route has trees higher then the 20 meters then I am screwed. And trust me I have many trees here in Canada higher then 20 meters. You Sir have no idea about what you are talking about and just causing confusion to us who want the adjustable height to come to the next App. Get on board or maybe you are just a DJI troll wanting the Anafi to fail.
 
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I am with you as consumer: My desire is also, that Parrot would implement an adjustable RTH hight for Anafi.

But that does not mean, that I am wrong:
Which scenario would you describe, that absolutely requires a variable RTH hight?
- Starting at the RTH point, flying up a nearby hill, you following the drone by foot, then both drone and you downward on the other side of the hill. Now the RTH point is out of sight, means the hill is between you/the drone and the RTH point.
In this Scenario the drone will of course crash on RTH, if the hill is higher than the RTH point + 20m.

But: What I said was, that the described scenario is not the scenario that Parrot had in mind, when writing the manual:
On page 10: "Parrot recommends pilots to take extra care when moving away from the take-off location of their drone (for example to follow ). In such cases, pilots must cancel the auto-RTH from the orange 1-minute alert which appears on the screen of their device, and keep piloting while monitoring closely its battery level, until it runs out of power and lands."
That means that Parrot assumes, that you DON'T follow the drone and stay near the RTH point.

If you like to follow your drone, you have to be very careful.
This is true now with a fixed return hight. But also with a variable return hight you would have to be careful: In the above example you would have to estimate while walking behind your drone, how high the hill is. Then you would have to adapt the RTH hight to the hill's hight + 20m. Difficult to do in an unknown terrain … and if you climb the next hill, you will have to estimate it's hight again ...
Another question:
If I would like to follow my drone by foot (controlled in manual mode!), then I don't really know, why my drone should return to the first starting point: It is possibly far away and I am also far away from it and after the drone's start of RTH I would have to run to the starting point to get the drone back again.

My point therefore is:
1. An adjustable RTH hight in my opinion gives the consumer a certain "safety feeling" and for this reason is "consumer's desire" (and mine!).
2. An adjustable RTH is -realistically speaking- not necessary, if you use the drone as "flying camera" controlled mainly from the starting point and always in sight, like Parrot sees this as normal use (see manual!).

Many words you use to apologize for the Parrot people blunder
when they designed Anafi. I can tell you, I've have tried to land twice unnecessarily and turn off/on Anafi to get the quad forget about the last take off place. If I did not, Anafi would fly into the trees if the Radio Controller suddenly stopped working and Anafi went to RTH mode. Then it was much easier only set the RTH height to 60 meters instead. The senial is only needed to fly uphill with trees around it. And yes, I'm walking after my quad during filming, as I'm not flying out of VLOS. ;)

Therefore, I can not really use that excuse on page 10.

Rule number 1 before you leave, the RTH height must be set so your quad can return safe to the takeoff place without bumping into things if something unpredictable happens during the flight. We've seen people forget that simple rules on forums a lot of times.

You could also get into trouble quickly if you use "follow me" on anything other than a flat field.

Fly safe, greetings Leif.
 
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Is this a problem? If you are losing signal and the drone is going to RTH it will tell you. There is a big red button at the top of the screen that allows you to stop RTH. The drone will hover, then you can climb to safe height and then press RTH and the Anafi will come back at that height. Simple vigilance should be enough surely. It is not as though the drone drops to 20m. Granted it would be better to set a custom RTH height but it isn't the deal-breaker that is being made out.

With lost connection to the Anafi Radio Controller?

Jae dream sweet about what you could have spent all the nice money for, you've just thrown out of the window by not thinking about your RTH height. ;)

Fly safe, Leif.
 
Wow, that was hard stuff.
I am on board, but it must be allowed to argue and say, what I think.

Ya it was hard stuff. Perhaps you have never run into a situation like one described. And yes you can argue and say what you think. It does not make your comments completely right.
I have over 3.5 years of experience in UAV photography. Most of which has been with GPS rigs. Trust me when I say that when I put up UAV's worth over a $1000 dollars and some worth a heck of a lot more I want control of said UAV going up and coming home and not some autonomous program telling me I have to RTH at X amount of height.

You are probably thinking what the heck is he thinking, the Anafi is worth 699 US dollars. Well here in Canada the best price we can get is from Bestbuy at $899 Canadian dollars, add the tax and I am over $1000 bucks.
I have lost a few UAV's to crashes and had to rebuild them. I have lost one to a river gorge where I could not get to it. Being retired and on a fixed income I do not want to let some company tell me what height they think is the right height for my Anafi to come back to me. If I am wrong I will wear the mistake, if they are wrong they will say pilot error.
 
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This is the response I submitted here under "Technical Questions":

Contact our support

What if I want my return to home altitude to be more than 20m? That seems very low to me. Say I was flying at 10m and I went around some trees that are 50m tall and lost connection? What is going to happen? My drone is going to rise to 20m and fly straight into the trees! Please modify the Free Flight 6 app so that I can set a fixed RTH altitude based on takeoff location (it would be more than 50m in this case). This is a huge flaw and will cause MANY crashes with your new product!!!

If you are in the same frame of mind as me, please copy and paste the same response and submit it to Parrot. They will listen if enough people complain.
 
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This is the response I submitted here under "Technical Questions":

Contact our support

What if I want my return to home altitude to be more than 20m? That seems very low to me. Say I was flying at 10m and I went around some trees that are 50m tall and lost connection? What is going to happen? My drone is going to rise to 20m and fly straight into the trees! Please modify the Free Flight 6 app so that I can set a fixed RTH altitude based on takeoff location (it would be more than 50m in this case). This is a huge flaw and will cause MANY crashes with your new product!!!

If you are in the same frame of mind as me, please copy and paste the same response and submit it to Parrot. They will listen if enough people complain.


Done :)
 
While an adjustable RTH would be nice, it has not caused any of my losses. I just make it a point not to fly behind tall things. Fly high,, fly safe. If you must get down low behind something, use flight plan.
 
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While an adjustable RTH would be nice, it has not caused any of my losses. I just make it a point not to fly behind tall things. Fly high,, fly safe. If you must get down low behind something, use flight plan.

Sorry, but it's a very bad idea you got to use Anafi flight plan at low altitude flights. Unlike Litchi / DJI, who can fly autonomously (without contact to RC / phone-tablet), Parrot Anafi requires that it all the time in the air is connected to the Radio Controller/phone-tablet for not going into RTH. And with the 20-meter altitude at RTH, you will find it is still all too low for not flying into something most of the time. Therefore, the RTH height should be adjustable between 20-30 meters and full altitude as on other brands flying systems.

But otherwise, it's right to fly high above all obstacles to fly safe (y) if you do not know exactly what you're doing.

Regards, Leif.
 
Just emailed customers services to complain about the RTH, I specified that Parrot does not know where each and every Anafi is flying, in which part of the world and in what conditions.

I used my Mavic as an example of the occassions it has been necessary to increase RTH to beyone 20m point.

If enough of us complain, then hopefully they MAY consider the change.
 
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Sorry, but it's a very bad idea you got to use Anafi flight plan at low altitude flights. Unlike Litchi / DJI, who can fly autonomously (without contact to RC / phone-tablet), Parrot Anafi requires that it all the time in the air is connected to the Radio Controller/phone-tablet for not going into RTH. And with the 20-meter altitude at RTH, you will find it is still all too low for not flying into something most of the time. Therefore, the RTH height should be adjustable between 20-30 meters and full altitude as on other brands flying systems.

But otherwise, it's right to fly high above all obstacles to fly safe (y) if you do not know exactly what you're doing.

Regards, Leif.
Actually, the Anafi will finish the flight plan as programmed even if it loses connection.
But I do support your effort to petition Parrot for an adjustable RTH.
 
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