Confused about the 98 foot altitude restriction.

[Mavic Air Head]

This may not apply at all, but I suddenly had that same issue arise after an update with my Air 1 last summer. My 400 ft. limit defaulted to 98 feet. I had to go into the app and manually change the limits. I maxed it out and contour flew up a mountain gaining over 1600 feet elevation over my take off point maintaining about 200' elevation over the contour. It was a pleasant surprise because prior to that I could only fly 400 feet over take off point, so had to hike up and fly down to cover the range I was trying to fly. I haven't had many flying hours since then, so I have to spend some time connecting the bird and controller and figuring it all out. I fly a lot of canyons documenting archeological sites, so I did a lot of flying down from rims. If I can continue to do this, it opens up a massive catalog of undocumented sites best accessed from below. I know people will say 400 feet 400 feet, you can't do that, but when you have 40-80 foot trees growing up the contour, it's easy to stay within 400 feet of ground line beneath the bird.

 

[kevbac]

I've seen a lot of on-line discussion about the MA2 not ascending beyond 98 foot AGL, but no real solution. This has been an ongoing problem for me, and I do have the latest firmware.

Today, I took my drone out to a park and did three flights. The first two would not climb beyond 98 feet. The third went to my max altitude setting (390 feet). Does anyone have an authoritative answer to what's going on?

I haven't read he entire thread but the first thing I'd look at --- By any chance are you in beginner mode? Beginner mode will prevent the drone from rising more than 30 metres (about 98 feet) or going more than 30 metres away.
It isn't obvious - although it should show on the app when you go to fly.

From the DJI Fly app manual (very early, like around page 7, depending on the version of the manual): "
'To enable Beginner mode, go to Camera View in the DJI GO 4 app, tap , and then tap the
Beginner mode switch. Flight altitude, distance, and speed are limited in Beginner mode.
Beginner mode is available when the GPS signal is strong.''
Disabling beginner mode will be the same - go to camera view, tap the screen to open some settings, and then tap the Beginner Mode toggle to turn it off.

 

[Tadass910]

I haven't read he entire thread but the first thing I'd look at --- By any chance are you in beginner mode? Beginner mode will prevent the drone from rising more than 30 metres (about 98 feet) or going more than 30 metres away.
It isn't obvious - although it should show on the app when you go to fly.

From the DJI Fly app manual (very early, like around page 7, depending on the version of the manual): "
'To enable Beginner mode, go to Camera View in the DJI GO 4 app, tap , and then tap the
Beginner mode switch. Flight altitude, distance, and speed are limited in Beginner mode.
Beginner mode is available when the GPS signal is strong.''
Disabling beginner mode will be the same - go to camera view, tap the screen to open some settings, and then tap the Beginner Mode toggle to turn it off.

I don’t think beginners mode turns automatically when you switch on drone and controller, it’s a weak gps like others sais in here, because for me sometimes also it happens that I get 30 m altitude restrictions without understanding why, fly zones are not restricted and even trying log in log out not helps sometimes it’s really weird

 

[ninja_geezer]

No one will have an authoritative answer, because there are a handful of conditions that will result in a height limit of 30 meters (98 feet).

Most common are:

1 - Not logged into the DJI account
2 - Weak GPS at takeoff
3 - Certain warning zones are height restricted as well.

Since you stated that it happened on two of three flights, I'm guessing #2, but we shouldn't rule out the others.

Log out and back in of your DJI account in the app, make sure you have strong GPS at takeoff, and check your park on the DJI flysafe map...

yep i tried it not signed in stopped me climbing above 98 foot ,i landed signed back in and away she went ,i also got a warning that it would cause distance issues.