First flight for Mavic and pilot

[deufrai]

Hi there
5 month after my introduction post in here, I finally got my Mavic Pro
Hesitated a lot before July about the soon-over-expected Mavic 2, but I decided to dive into this with a well known bird.

Received it on last Thursday (4 days ago).
Night 1 was about battery charging and physical inspection of the drone and accessories (I got the Fly more Combo)
Night 2 was about global setting review and first tweaks
I've read the whole manual several times since last march, so I was confident I could have successful maiden flight.

So there, I went to a nice clearing in the woods, just 10 mn walk away from home
IMU was calibrated just fine out of the box. I just had to calibrate the compasses
DJI GO 4 app running on a Samsung S7 Edge

First flight : DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com
A 2 mn hover flight, in order to get comfy with the controls and app. All looked just fine

Second Flight : DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com
Now we are starting to move around. Tested RTH as well, to make sure all is fine in case of trouble. By I don't intend to use it as a return aid. It will just be a failsafe for me. I like to fly the thing, even for landing on my small pad.

This second flight, even in beginner mode was quite intense, as it is really easy at that stage to get overwhelmed with all the info given by the app, the real world and all. At that time I was just focusing on the flying. camera settings and exposure was just roughly set to get a good video feedback on the phone, but I did not intend to get some good footage from this first flight. (more on that later)

Third and last flight for the night : DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com
Confidence raises and I allowed myself to fly longer, out of Beginner mode, and even got into Sport mode for a little while

This beast is truly a piece of cake to fly

It has been a very exciting night. All went smoothly. Solid connection with the phone, good fun. But a little disappointment showed up when I got home. I thought I thoroughly reviewed all my settings, but I did left video resolution @ 4K. Which my poor computer cannot handle for now. So the precious footage of that good maiden flight will be burried in the sand for some time. Santa, if you hear me ...

I've been out with the Mavic a lot during the weekend and accumulated 1h46mn of flight. In various locations and forms. And all I got to say right now is : Give me Moar !!!!

 

[Mossiback]

I'm glad your first experience was a positive one. You didn't even crash it while in sport mode! To get a good feel for the controls, I have found it helpful to fly without looking at the display at all. Once you are comfortable with the controls then mess with all the confusion Go 4 gives you. Don't forget the pause button on the RC, it acts as an emergency stop when needed.

 

[Flycaster]

Do yourself a favor, do not update anything. Tablet/phone, AC firmware, controller firmware, battery firmware, nothing. Until you get the bird wrung out and things are happy.

The reason I suggest this is that updates tend to throw other things into the Jello bowl. (You poke it there, it jiggles over there.) Folks have had issues with updates causing more issues than they fix.
Mostly they hobble the machine to protect themselves (see limited dist./alt./quizzes/no fly zone/no take off etc.

Think very carefully before doing any updates. Sometimes updaing can go wonky, a missing bit or byte, a glitch in the rf for your wifi (always if you do any updating, do it hardwired with a LAN cable.) If it's perfect for you the way it is, leave it. I have not updated anything for my Mavic in over a yaer and a half, and rock solid, no gimbal resets/tilted horizons, motor overcurrent etc. ZERO issues.

The only thing I don't have ion my bird is the "asteroids" and "boomerang" flight modes, for example that were tossed out as bait to update. I fly those patterns manually.

Read the forums regarding updating and such, and you will approach it guardedly.

 

[LeafPeeper]

It has been a very exciting night. All went smoothly. Solid connection with the phone, good fun. But a little disappointment showed up when I got home. I thought I thoroughly reviewed all my settings, but I did left video resolution @ 4K. Which my poor computer cannot handle for now. So the precious footage of that good maiden flight will be burried in the sand for some time. Santa, if you hear me ...

I had an underpowered system when I got my MP as well and only recently upgraded. For the time that I lived with it, the first thing I did when I got home was to unload the SD card and convert every clip to 1080p via Handbrake so I could enjoy the view. It takes a little while, but at least you can view your clips that way and learn how to improve your shots....

LP

 

[LeafPeeper]

this. hello. im Bob. I just bought the pro from best buy YESTERDAY and work at a golf course. perfect place to figure it all out. I HAVE MADE ZERO UPDATES ON THE CONTROLLER OR DEVICE. APP INSTALLED YESTERDAY (4.2.21). absolutely love my Mavic and had No Idea that GPS actually meant im only restricted to battery power. I was scared yesterday and only went about 100 feet or so but today I literally went around the block at least a quarter mile away. this thing is a beast...i finally went sport mode only to air it out on a straight away and couldn't believe it.. its so fast I would never run it that speed..lol...46mph...lol I love this thing. im in this hobby big time now. next purchase next month are the goggles. just wanted to mention I DONT THINK I have any issues but haven't updated like my app is asking as im flying
... hope im doing the right thing by ignoring the update requests.....

No offense Bob, but given the accessibility to quads now, posts like this scare me a little. Please be sure to read up on the laws, requirements and airport notification rules for where you fly. If you are in the US, you have to maintain LOS, which you can't do with the goggles unless you have a visual observer. I'd hate to see you get blindsided and into trouble...

Edit: the reason I felt compelled to post this was because I bought mine in a pretty quick fashion as well and the laws caught me by surprise. It took away some of the fun until I got used to them.

LP

 

[mrwagdog]

Nice report, good stuff.

Although I'd flown quite a few toy drones prior to getting my MP in April of this year, I found the MP quite a leap. My first flights were very boring and guarded. Although I hooked up the screen I spent most of the time watching the bird and getting a feel for it. I've been in sport mode a few times but really don't find much of a need for it.

Keep going!

 

[deufrai]

Do yourself a favor, do not update anything. Tablet/phone, AC firmware, controller firmware, battery firmware, nothing. Until you get the bird wrung out and things are happy.

The reason I suggest this is that updates tend to throw other things into the Jello bowl. (You poke it there, it jiggles over there.) Folks have had issues with updates causing more issues than they fix.
Mostly they hobble the machine to protect themselves (see limited dist./alt./quizzes/no fly zone/no take off etc.

Think very carefully before doing any updates. Sometimes updaing can go wonky, a missing bit or byte, a glitch in the rf for your wifi (always if you do any updating, do it hardwired with a LAN cable.) If it's perfect for you the way it is, leave it. I have not updated anything for my Mavic in over a yaer and a half, and rock solid, no gimbal resets/tilted horizons, motor overcurrent etc. ZERO issues.

The only thing I don't have ion my bird is the "asteroids" and "boomerang" flight modes, for example that were tossed out as bait to update. I fly those patterns manually.

Read the forums regarding updating and such, and you will approach it guardedly.

Thanks for this advice. I actually saw many similar advises in here and jusst set my phone to stop auto-updating DJI GO app.

I had an underpowered system when I got my MP as well and only recently upgraded. For the time that I lived with it, the first thing I did when I got home was to unload the SD card and convert every clip to 1080p via Handbrake so I could enjoy the view. It takes a little while, but at least you can view your clips that way and learn how to improve your shots....

LP

Hi and thanks for pointing me to a way to "down-sample"

 

[seowashdc]

You did it right. You didn't give into wanting to immediately fly over water, go beyond VLOS, and I'm happy that your flights have gone well. As for the video setting, if that's the worst thing you've done wrong, then no worries!

I recommend doing a number of boring flights to get used to the bird and seeing just how easy it is to lose VLOS against trees, buildings, over roofs, etc., so that you're used to this. Practicing RTH and seeing how the bird behaves is good to do. Cautiously flying sport mode for practice is great!

If more new owners followed your example, there would be fewer posts on "I lost my drone on the very first flight" and the attendant wailing that goes along with.

 

[charliesRig]

If you do not crash you not flying hard enough.....Think about it
to true injoy mavic you must fly like this will be your last flight
if I could add my two cent...

Never fly with less then 20% battery life
Please set the loose signal with controller in RTH
............set forward-obstacle-avoidance in RTH
.
and if you are using the cheep little cables that came with your mavic...Don't
.....................cR
.
.