Do we think the gimbal protector has to be removed to start the Air 3 up?

[Thmoore]

When my Air 2 turns on, the gimbal flings itself all over the place as the aircraft wakes up. I cried out in pain every time I started it up and forgot to remove the gimbal protector beforehand, and popped it off as quickly as I possibly could.

But the Air 3 doesn't seem to do any of that – the gimbal sits still through the startup process.

Do we think it might could possibly be OK to not remove the Air 3's gimbal protector if we want to turn the drone on to, say, set waypoints or do some fast file transfers?

There just seems to be a lot more the Air 3 is expected to do while sitting on the ground and turned on, and it would be nice to (a) lazily not have to worry about forgetting to do it and (b) have the gimbal protected while I'm doing non-flying activities with the aircraft.

Thanks!

 

[msinger]

From the Air 3 manual:




Since DJI took the time to include that mention in the manual, I can only assume it's important to follow that advice.

 

[Thmoore]

From the Air 3 manual:

View attachment 167402


Since DJI took the time to include that mention in the manual, I can only assume it's important to follow that advice.

That's a good point, thank you.

 

[Dave Maine]

What the drone is doing when it powers up and the gimbal does its dance is calibrating the camera to the flight management system so that the fms can keep the camera steady as the drone shifts around. You definitely want to have the drone do this every time it starts.

 

[Thmoore]

Thank you! What’s different about the Air 3 is that it doesn’t really do much of a dance. I took a video to compare the two, and the Air 3 actually does move the gimbal around a little more than I’d thought, but it’s still a lot less than the Mavic Air 2:

 

[umanbean]

and the Air 3 actually does move the gimbal around a little more than I’d thought, but it’s still a lot less than the Mavic Air 2:

You should see the camera / gimbal on a Phantom 3 Pro... looks like it's going crazy.

 

[Thmoore]

Interestingly, the gimbal holder on the Air 3 actually allows for some vertical movement of the gimbal, within the range that the video shows, above; it's not locked down completely.

I'm not going to challenge the idea that we oughta take it off, but it seems clear that you're not grinding the gears as much as you do on a Mavic Air 2 if you forget to do so.