Bad behavior

[maggior]

My guess would be that your iPhone isn't up to the task. What you describe is an data being buffered due to an unresponsive application and it catches back up quickly once its responsive again. Did you have any other applications running on your phone? Could be another app receiving a notification and hanging up the works.
You can always get a more recent refurbished iPhone for cheap and dedicate it to only use with your drone.

When you say the drone wasn't responding to stick input - were you basing this solely on what you saw in the display? It could be that the drone was responding to your stick inputs which you could verify by looking directly at the drone. It may have only appeared to not be responding because the app on the iPhone was bogged down.

 

[hedbonker]

My guess would be that your iPhone isn't up to the task. What you describe is an data being buffered due to an unresponsive application and it catches back up quickly once its responsive again. Did you have any other applications running on your phone? Could be another app receiving a notification and hanging up the works.
You can always get a more recent refurbished iPhone for cheap and dedicate it to only use with your drone.

When you say the drone wasn't responding to stick input - were you basing this solely on what you saw in the display? It could be that the drone was responding to your stick inputs which you could verify by looking directly at the drone. It may have only appeared to not be responding because the app on the iPhone was bogged down.

I only had 1 app running - DJI Fly. I asked DJI about the use of the iPhone 8 with the Air 3 and they said it should be adequate. I could see the drone just hovering when I was giving control input and it was ignoring it.

 

[Meta4]

Well I would but due to privacy concerns that log will have to stay in my hands

There's really nothing in your flight data that you need to be concerned about sharing.
If you want to keep your flight data secret, there's no point asking for help with flight incidents.

 

[hedbonker]

Well that last flight I did in my driveway - Load that up into FlightData and you can see right where my house is at on a map. Normally I would not fly at my residence but I made an exception for that test. I would load it up here but not when it's at my house...

 

[WanderLost]

I only had 1 app running - DJI Fly. I asked DJI about the use of the iPhone 8 with the Air 3 and they said it should be adequate. I could see the drone just hovering when I was giving control input and it was ignoring it.

Your Phantom 3 has a max video bitrate of 40 Mbps while the Air 3 has a max bitrate of 150 Mpbs. I believe that the almost 4X greater demand on your display device explains the slow and halting responses to inputs and the corresponding delays in the video display.

 

[hedbonker]

Your Phantom 3 has a max video bitrate of 40 Mbps while the Air 3 has a max bitrate of 150 Mpbs. I believe that the almost 4X greater demand on your display device explains the slow and halting responses to inputs and the corresponding delays in the video display.

Those bit rates refer to the bitrate of the video file that is recorded to the sd card, not the video that is transmitted to the remote. Nonetheless I did return the drone. I have flown 12 batteries through the replacement AIR 3 that I got and it has been flawless so I know there was something odd going on with the first drone.

I also asked DJI if my phone was adequate for use with the AIR 3 and they said it would be fine. When I described the issues I was having with the drone they recommended that I return it as well. Ran 3 batteries through it this morning - all at max altitude and a good distance away from me and no issues whatsoever.

 

[hedbonker]

As a follow up here I have run 26 full batteries through the new drone. ZERO issues. Pushed it far past what I had with the previous AIR 3 that I returned. I have had ZERO issues with this replacement so I am glad I did the return to be honest.

 

[WildcatDave]

Thanks for coming back and reporting your use. Since a lot of us will be getting the new Air 3 we may run into these troubles and it would be nice to have your info as well.