Mavic air terrain following

sfox · Feb 12, 2018

Ive had my air for just 4 days, It's my first, It really is a fantastic piece of kit. Is the Air able to follow terrain like the Mavic pro does?

42Cacher · Feb 12, 2018

up: yes
down: no
(just like the Pro)

msinger · Feb 12, 2018

The Mavic Air does not have the Terrain Follow flight mode.

If the Mavic Air will be flying close to the ground, you could enable APAS (via the icon on the left side of DJI GO) to allow the Mavic Air to automatically avoid obstacles (including the ground) while flying straight. Here are a few videos that show how APAS works:

Air Beetle · Feb 12, 2018

It has follow me and it only follows uphill, not downhill which was posted above. DJI SHOULD have it on the Air since it has ground avoidance. I scratch my head why it's not the opposite function. It should be able to easily follow downhill without any avoidance features. Oh well, Litchi has it.

galfridus · Feb 12, 2018

So if I use SmartCapture and descend, the Mavic Air will stay at a constant altitude (and thus be farther away as I go down)?

Edit: ninja'd, nvm.

Air Beetle · Feb 12, 2018

correct and it's very annoying - absolutely no valid reason for DJI to do this

bz101 · Feb 12, 2018

Does anyone use Litchi or Autopilot to handle this better?

amanakoinum · Feb 12, 2018

bz101 said:
Does anyone use Litchi or Autopilot to handle this better?

Autopilot is da bomb. Changes altitude up/down too.
Very great.

Here's a Demo of follow mode vs. DJI, starts at 2:00mins:

bz101 · Feb 12, 2018

Cool. Does Autopilot work with the Mavic Air?

amanakoinum · Feb 12, 2018

bz101 said:
Cool. Does Autopilot work with the Mavic Air?

Not yet, support is coming soon though.
Supports the Spark as well, so Mavic Air support is just a matter of time.

WTFoxtrot · Feb 12, 2018

42Cacher said:
up: yes
down: no
(just like the Pro)

It is possible to overcome the NO in DJI Go. All you have to do is hold your left stick down when coming down the hill. The Mavics will descend as you fly down the hill (but only far enough to maintain the Terrain Follow altitude you started with.) I kind of like this as it gives you the option to maintain the altitude or follow the terrain down.

Air Beetle · Feb 12, 2018

totally defeats the feature tho who wants to have to fly it while being followed

WTFoxtrot · Feb 12, 2018

Air Beetle said:
totally defeats the feature tho who wants to have to fly it while being followed

The "follow" in TerrainFollow is meant to be the drone following the terrain -- you are still directing it just not worrying about keeping a smooth rise as the terrain goes up (which is hard to do if you are too far away to gauge it correctly). You can supposedly combine this with ActiveTrack to have it do what you are referring to.