As far as I can tell, when DD plans out a mission, Waypoint #2 is always a turn to the left. No matter how I rotate the flight direction, it is always a left turn off the first mission leg. This can result in a flight geometry that eats up more battery than necessary as the mission starts or ends at the wrong end of a field. Sometimes, I can play with the altitude or slightly adjust the sidelap to get closer to the flight plan I want, but surely there must be a way to run the flight plan turning right at waypoint 2 instead of left.
Here are screenshots that show the problem. I wanted to fly this mission and due to winds, it was best to fly E/W rather than N/S. DD will only give me these 2 choices:
As you can see, for the given flight parameters, I can either start in the SW corner or the NE corner. But what I want to do is start at the SE corner. My home point will be at the east side of this field at the driveway about 1/3 of the way up from the south. The current mission choices include a “deadhead” leg from the farthest point in the entire field from home. I like the control paths but I want to reverse the flight direction. If the program would let me tell it “right turn” or “clockwise” or something to that effect so that the mission starts up where I want, then that would solve the problem completely.
I always have the option of expanding my flight boundaries and telling it to start the mission at waypoint 3 like this:
But this is a poor workaround for what seems like a pretty simple feature to add to the planning tool.