Mavic Vs. P3P Distance/Battery Life

[Gringorio]

OK, the details:

In GPS Mode, the P3P went to 2.99 miles (15,809') with 'windsurfer-style' antenna booster with a total flight time of approx. 17 minutes with 32% battery left.

Under similar conditions, in Sport Mode, the Mavic went to 3.2 miles (16,785') stock with a total flight time of a little over 14 minutes with 12% battery left.

What I don't know is if you fly the Mavic in GPS Mode, will you get better battery life? Does Sport Mode drain the battery faster?

 

[erkme73]

MUCH faster. Simple test - leave RC in GPS mode and watch remaining time estimate while hovering and moving forward full throttle. Then do the same thing in sport mode. You'll find the time estimate drops by nearly 50%. This thing eats electrons in sport mode.

 

[longrange]

I think you would have to fly them beside each other to make the numbers accurate. Same height, speed, course etc. You will need a friend to fly one of them. Lol. A minor difference in the wind would make a big difference over that distance. Without making all factors the same the results are not comparable.


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[Gringorio]

MUCH faster. Simple test - leave RC in GPS mode and watch remaining time estimate while hovering and moving forward full throttle. Then do the same thing in sport mode. You'll find the time estimate drops by nearly 50%. This thing eats electrons in sport mode.

So I guess speed does not necessarily mean "efficiency" in terms of getting to a goal in shorter time? There is a cost to speed, then: "This thing eats electrons in sports mode"?

I'll have to try the same objective in GPS mode and see how it goes: Slower mph, but maybe more efficient? I also agree that it's nearly impossible to duplicate ambient conditions...

 

[longrange]

Hard to hold speed too. Lol. During my windy flight today in sport mode I managed 12 mph into the wind. 56 mph coming back with the wind. Went over my house like a missile. Lol


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[Florida Drone Supply]

Hard to hold speed too. Lol. During my windy flight today in sport mode I managed 12 mph into the wind. 56 mph coming back with the wind. Went over my house like a missile. Lol


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Wow - how much of a tail wind did you have?

 

[CactusJackSlade]

Very cool.... I might take it "easy" the first few battery cycles though ;-)

 

[longrange]

Wow - how much of a tail wind did you have?

So windy that the remote was screaming at me the whole flight about high winds. Lol


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[Logger]

..What I don't know is if you fly the Mavic in GPS Mode, will you get better battery life? Does Sport Mode drain the battery faster?

Sport mode will clearly drain the battery faster if you fly it faster, But it is also possible that a better ground range may be achievable in sports mode.
It depends on how you fly it though. If by battery life you mean "flight time" then you should be achieve the same maximum battery life in both modes. Fly it in either mode as per the manual at 25kph, DJI reckon the battery should last for 27 minutes or thereabouts. My longest flight is 26 minutes BTW, without doing anything much special and flying at various speeds.

However my interest is maximum ground range, not maximum flight time. Knowing this would give the answer as to how to fly the longest possible (still air) route on a single battery. Something faster than 25kph (max flight time) but less than the max 65kph speed (max battery drain rate) in sports mode will equate to max range. I have been using 50kph/30mph and comfortably flew 5.3 miles in 11.75 min, landing with 42% battery. So scaling that battery use vs distance out to land with 12% battery, which is doable, just, I get 42265' or 8.00 miles (~18min) which co incidentally equates exactly to 8 miles, matching the manual. So to be comfortable one should be able to plan a 40,000' Litchi route at 30mph with a small reserve of around ~2000' at the end. A work in progress though, so will be interesting to see what strategies other people come up with.

 

[seanmclean]

Sport mode burns through the battery significantly faster than not.

 

[toegema]

Sport mode burns through the battery significantly faster than not.

Of course, but there is also more distance covered.
The question is, like the Dutch guy who flew too far out over water, he realized too late that he didn't have enough battery to reach home when using rth. The phantom luckily landed on a sandbank (but still far from the beach).
Could he have made it flying manually (canceling rth), and if so, would normal full throttle in P-mode or Sportsmode have helped?


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[MavicPilot]

Very cool.... I might take it "easy" the first few battery cycles though ;-)

Is it still suggested to baby the battery for the first 10 flights? No more than 50% used and then land?

I have been following this on the mavic since I saw it on the Phantom forum for my P3A..