Mavic Air 2 in EU - my conclusion

[YRauste]

Mavic Air 2 is a "legacy drone" in European Union, which kind of annoys me a bit. I made a thread on the DJI forum to describe my stand on this issue (direct quote of the opening message):

DJI decided to make Mavic Air 2 a compliant drone in US, Japan, China ... but not in EU. This probably means that DJI considers European Union a marginal market for their products. Somebody may argue that Air 2 is still compliant in Europe in A3 airspace but that argument counts very little to most pilots who live in populated areas. For most pilots, an Air 2 is very close to a paper weight.
In retrospective, DJI could have implemented RID in the beginning of Air 2 active production or selling period. DJI even demonstrated their RID technology in some international drone working group meeting in Canada around that time. DJI could (and in my opinion should) have declared Air 2 as a C1 drone at that time (not waiting until the end of the transition period of the EU drone regulations). The fact that DJI hesitated to make this strategic decision (when it was time for it) makes me think that DJI is a company led by lawyers - lawyers coming from the country where objects may be closer than they appear

It seems to me that EU is a marginal market to DJI. They could have made Air 2 a C1 drone in EU if they had the will. Now that there are some legislative initiatives in the USA against DJI products, this attitude seems a bit funny to me. Anyway, as long as DJI considers Mavic Air 2 as a compliant C1 drone in their "before-you-fly" instructions in DJI Fly app (they do it in today's version of DJI Fly), there is hope that DJI reconsiders its decision regarding Mavic Air 2 and C1 category in EU ...

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

with regards to the EU being insignificant to DJI, as a market place for any of their products I doubt it.

With regards to drones in general I also doubt it.
Have a look at the member map
https://mavicpilots.com/dbtech-membermap/
and compare USA & Europe.
True Europe has about 1/3 of the number of members who have added their location when comapred to the USA and admittedly it need not be an accurate portrayal but its still a significant number.
Why would DJI go to the bother of writing EU reg 'compliant' firmware for sub 250g drones flown in a certan category i.e. the 120m hard height limit ( which is plain stupid to my mind .....but.....)

If DJI lose the American market Europe will be come even more important to DJI.

With regards to the Air 2 hmmmm can't really say but the air 2 is quite old.

That said, I have a library of troubled flights which have been downloaded from the web.
Ecluding my mistakes, in terms of individual drones it contains the logs of 1,178 drones of which 227 were flown in the EU, as the EU is defined in

Countries in the EU and EEA

The European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) - which countries are in the EU and EEA, the single market and free movement of goods, capital, services and people

www.gov.uk

If you add the EEA that becomes 248, if you add in Switzerland that becomes 255 and if you add the UK it becomes 367.

The USA has 436.

In terms of the Air 2 the USA 'has' 40 drones, the EU 'has' 10 and the UK 'has' 7.

 

[Felix le Chat]

with regards to the EU being insignificant to DJI, as a market place for any of their products I doubt it.

With regards to drones in general I also doubt it.
Have a look at the member map
https://mavicpilots.com/dbtech-membermap/
and compare USA & Europe.
True Europe has about 1/3 of the number of members who have added their location when comapred to the USA and admittedly it need not be an accurate portrayal but its still a significant number.
Why would DJI go to the bother of writing EU reg 'compliant' firmware for sub 250g drones flown in a certan category i.e. the 120m hard height limit ( which is plain stupid to my mind .....but.....)

If DJI lose the American market Europe will be come even more important to DJI.

With regards to the Air 2 hmmmm can't really say but the air 2 is quite old.

That said, I have a library of troubled flights which have been downloaded from the web.
Ecluding my mistakes, in terms of individual drones it contains the logs of 1,178 drones of which 227 were flown in the EU, as the EU is defined in

Countries in the EU and EEA

The European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) - which countries are in the EU and EEA, the single market and free movement of goods, capital, services and people

www.gov.uk

If you add the EEA that becomes 248, if you add in Switzerland that becomes 255 and if you add the UK it becomes 367.

The USA has 436.

In terms of the Air 2 the USA 'has' 40 drones, the EU 'has' 10 and the UK 'has' 7.

Concur. Europe (continental) and south-east Asia account for at least as many drone sales as the US. Fair enough: it might be the largest SINGLE marketplace, but describing the eastern side of the Atlantic as marginal? I genuinely doubt that.

I too have 'legacy' drones still in use that DJI no longer manufactures or supports fully. They are set to be dumped into the A4 class in Britain within the next couple of years, in the EU: this will happen sooner. The A4 classification has nothing to do with the manufacturer, it is exclusively down to airspace regulatory bodies and I get the feeling that this is due to the fact that the older drones were built with capabilities not in keeping with the degree of restrictive control the CAA/EASA/FAA wants to exert over their use.

RID is active in all DJI drones already, with the necessary firmware installed and fully functional (via the flight app) since 2018 (GO4) Later versions of the flight app removed the option for users to be able to switch it off, before that: you had two toggle switches for activating, or deactivating UUID and RID.

At the moment: it is only the continental United States that requires this constantly broadcast RID data to be collected by domestic non-DJI hardware, so unless Europe decides to trot down the same paranoid path: your Air 2 is definitely RID compliant already (non-American flavour): as are both my Mavic 2's.

 

[Ulf Pedersen]

Mavic Air 2 er en "legacy drone" i EU, hvilket på en måde irriterer mig lidt. Jeg lavede en tråd på DJI-forummet for at beskrive min holdning til dette spørgsmål (direkte citat af åbningsmeddelelsen):

DJI besluttede at gøre Mavic Air 2 til en kompatibel drone i USA, Japan, Kina ... men ikke i EU. Det betyder formentlig, at DJI betragter EU som et marginalt marked for deres produkter. Nogen vil måske hævde, at Air 2 stadig er kompatibel i Europa i A3-luftrummet, men det argument tæller meget lidt for de fleste piloter, der bor i befolkede områder. For de fleste piloter er en Air 2 meget tæt på en papirvægt.
I retrospektiv kunne DJI have implementeret RID i begyndelsen af Air 2's aktive produktions- eller salgsperiode. DJI demonstrerede endda deres RID-teknologi på et internationalt dronearbejdsgruppemøde i Canada omkring det tidspunkt. DJI kunne (og burde efter min mening) have erklæret Air 2 som en C1 drone på det tidspunkt (ikke vente til slutningen af overgangsperioden for EU's droneregler). Det faktum, at DJI tøvede med at træffe denne strategiske beslutning (da det var tid til det), får mig til at tro, at DJI er en virksomhed ledet af advokater - advokater, der kommer fra det land, hvor objekter kan være tættere på, end de ser ud til.

Det forekommer mig, at EU er et marginalt marked for DJI. De kunne have gjort Air 2 til en C1-drone i EU, hvis de havde viljen. Nu hvor der er nogle lovgivningsmæssige initiativer i USA mod DJI-produkter, virker denne holdning lidt sjov for mig. Anyway, så længe DJI betragter Mavic Air 2 som en kompatibel C1 drone i deres "before-you-fly" instruktioner i DJI Fly app (det gør de i dagens version af DJI Fly), er der håb om, at DJI genovervejer sin beslutning mht. Mavic Air 2 og C1 kategori i EU ...

Jeg er helt enig, selvom jeg har en DJI AIR2S, har jeg også undret mig over, at jeg skulle vente til den 11. april 2024, før DJI kunne tage sig sammen til at udgive C1.

Jeg var 2 cm fra at slå på tastaturet og bestille en AIR3, netop fordi C1 var en vigtig ting for mig.

Så det må ikke være et pengespørgsmål, før de udgav C1.

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