Mavic Pro at 28,000' above sea level

rockjock10 · Jul 31, 2018

Hey all, question for the experts. A pilot just flew a Mavic Pro at the summit of the worlds 2nd tallest mountain K2, (8,611 metres (28,251 ft). Bartek Bargiel (@bartek_bargiel) • Instagram photos and videos . Outside of firmware hacks, do you guys believe this copter was out of the box? Any hardware upgrades? This blows the published ceilings out of the sky!!

Also, is there any reason to believe a Phantom 4 couldn't fly at similar altitudes?

None of the published ceilings for any DJI drone come close to these altitudes, but they've exceeded them anyhow. The phantom 4 has the highest published ceiling, so thought it might have more propulsion than the Mavic Pro. Any thoughts?

sar104 · Jul 31, 2018

It's not as if they will fly fine up to the published ceilings and beyond that just stop working. There is just a steady decline in performance and flight time as you go higher. The actual number is most likely somewhat arbitrary, but it might represent a particular percentage of some metric of sea level performance. Ultimately there will be an altitude at which the aircraft simply won't have enough thrust to take off, but that's clearly much higher.

ac0j · Jul 31, 2018

The altitude ceiling of the drones firmware / software is height above take off point. IF that is what you are talking about. You were only as high as the drone was from where it took off for all it knows. You could have went 1600+ feet high from where you were without any hacks.
Otherwise, @sar104 explained the physical limitations.....

sar104 · Jul 31, 2018

ac0j said:
The altitude ceiling of the drones firmware / software is height above take off point. IF that is what you are talking about. You were only as high as the drone was from where it took off for all it knows. You could have went 1600+ feet high from where you were without any hacks.
Otherwise, @sar104 explained the physical limitations.....

I assumed that the OP was referring to the service ceiling above sea level (5000 m or 16404 ft for the Mavic Pro) rather than the AGL 500 m flight restriction.