New Pilot in San Diego

[westofhwy5]

I am a new Mavic Air pilot in SanDiego California. I was not aware of the 48 hour rule for getting the Care Plan but I did the video and it is less painful than it sounds and I was approved in 2 days. Now I working sport mode and having some fun with it. Thenext step in my training now that I have read the manual 3 times and have 5 flights under my belt I am goign to practice hand catching the drone. I plan to fly alot over water so any sggestions advice warnings are welcome, thanks!

Westofhwy5

 

[Point Zero]

Be careful when flying over water, especially in Sports Mode! Every single time I have flown my Mavic 2 in sports mode over water the drone always losses altitude and if I was not watching very carefully I would have flown my drone into the water many times. There is something unusual that happens with the sensors so just be careful and don't fly really low until you get a good feel for how the drone will behave.

Have fun dude and welcome to the forum.

 

[dirkclod]

Welcome to Mavic Pilots .
I hope you will find our site helpful and look forward to any input , photo's/video's you might post .
Don't be shy and ask anything if you can't find it by searching .

 

[msinger]

Welcome to the forum!

I plan to fly alot over water so any sggestions advice warnings are welcome

Make sure you start with a fully charged battery and you get back to the home point before the battery is too low to make it back. And if it's windy, keep in mind the Mavic is going to use up more battery power than usual if flying into the wind on the way back to the home point.

 

[westofhwy5]

Be careful when flying over water, especially in Sports Mode! Every single time I have flown my Mavic 2 in sports mode over water the drone always losses altitude and if I was not watching very carefully I would have flown my drone into the water many times. There is something unusual that happens with the sensors so just be careful and don't fly really low until you get a good feel for how the drone will behave.

Have fun dude and welcome to the forum.

What would you say is a safe distance to the water? I want to use ActiveTrack for following my boat and also for surfing?

 

[Point Zero]

What would you say is a safe distance to the water? I want to use ActiveTrack for following my boat and also for surfing?

Well the thing is dependant on waves lol. The bigger the waves the higher you have to go. When its calm I have scooted along at around 2 meters off the surface of the water, but as you start to push the throttle further up then the AC starts to lose altitude. Its most pronounced in sports mode. Anything above 6 to 10 meters seems to mitigate the issue so if you are starting your flights higher than that you will be fine imo. Also with active track you should be fine with slower moving targets so can probably go lower if you need to.

This is why I think its the sensors. To be honest what I should have done is switch them off and then try the same manoeuvres and see what happens, but I never had the guts to do that lol. Again you should have some fun and play around for a bit and see what gives. Who knows I may have a badly set up drone, though I have read quite a few posts from other with the same issue, many of which actually ditched their drones.

Good luck with your shoot dude and maybe post it up when its done.

 

[CaptBill]

I fly just north of you in Oceanside. Also use on the boat. So far, no disasters but it is still stressful for me to fly over water from my boat.