Should I be having second thoughts?

[Londroner]

It is said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So how dangerous is a lot?

I am hoping to buy a Mavic Pro in the very near future and, like any new pilot-in-waiting, am vociferously absorbing every scrap of knowledge I can find online, from this excellent forum to YouTube and beyond. Problem is, the more I read/see/hear the more concerned I become about the validity of my decision.

Whether it's fly-aways, NFZs, bird attacks, hostile locals, LOS or just plain drones falling out of the sky I worry about sending a £1,000+ piece of gear off into the unknown with no guarantee of its return. Am I alone in this feeling?

Can any experienced MP pilot offer reassurances that I'm doing the right thing? It's an exciting hobby I'd like to be part of but not if I'll just be pouring money down a black hole.

Appreciate your help.

 

[msinger]

The more you know about your Mavic, the better chance you'll have of keeping it in air and always returning home safely. Is that guaranteed? No. Nothing can guarantee that you won't run into any of the issues you've been reading on the Internet. On the other hand, it wouldn't be rational to believe all of those things are also going to happen to you.

 

[james_mav]

It is said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So how dangerous is a lot?

I am hoping to buy a Mavic Pro in the very near future and, like any new pilot-in-waiting, am vociferously absorbing every scrap of knowledge I can find online, from this excellent forum to YouTube and beyond. Problem is, the more I read/see/hear the more concerned I become about the validity of my decision.

Whether it's fly-aways, NFZs, bird attacks, hostile locals, LOS or just plain drones falling out of the sky I worry about sending a £1,000+ piece of gear off into the unknown with no guarantee of its return. Am I alone in this feeling?

Can any experienced MP pilot offer reassurances that I'm doing the right thing? It's an exciting hobby I'd like to be part of but not if I'll just be pouring money down a black hole.

Appreciate your help.

I was going to review a $1,200 drone, but I lost it in Hawaii — here's what happened

 

[TrayBoz]

The only real black hole that comes along with mavic ownership is the amount of $$$ you'll want to spend on accessories.

For reassurance that you're doing the right thing, just look at the poll called "Are you happy with your mavic?" 95% of the people seem to think that the terrifying feeling that you'll have (naturally) that you could crash or lose your mavic someday is still worth it, for all of the enjoyment we get from it. Having State Farm insurance helps ease the fear somewhat, but I don't think it every really goes away.

Just remember that for every 5 people you read about on this forum who are having major problems of some kind, there are 95 people out there who are having a blast with no problems - they just don't bother to come on here and brag about it.

And out of the 5% of the people who are not happy with their mavic: I'm sure a good percentage of those people didn't take the time to educate themselves on what they were getting into, or take necessary precautions, or read the manual, or follow the basic guidelines, or are just idiots. (Not ALL of them, but many of them.)

I've had my mavic since January and fly several times a week, every week. My mavic has always performed 100% reliably and predictably. (That's not to say that I haven't made a few bone-headed moves.) I install every firmware update, take as many precautions as possible, and have State Farm just in case.

Naturally, you're going to hear a lot of horror stories on a forum like this.
It's the same reason my wife wonders why she's paranoid that I'm plotting to murder her: she sits around and watches every episode of Dateline and 48 Hours on ID and 20/20. (or maybe I AM).

 

[JeffM46]

I'll second TreyBoz’s comment. As with most forums the complaints, problems, and conspiracies theories are disproportional by an order of magnitude to the overall experience. The Mavic is incredibly easy to fly. As you start getting more confident, you'll have some interesting explained, but if you read the manual, you'll usually understand and know what to do. Go for it. You'll be glad.

 

[Andrew Wright]

I have been flying DJI products for a year now and absolutely love it.

The best advice I can give you is start flying somewhere remote where you're not going to upset anyone. I started in a the middle of a mile long field that had a public footpath through it. Take it easy to start with, just take off, go up a 10 to 20 metres and get used to the controls by going backwards and forwards a few metres. Watch out for the wind and how it affects the drone. I did this for a month before venturing out further.

What I wouldn't do is push the limits of a drone. The laws are there for a reason, so don't go over 400 feet and fly miles away. That's how accidents happen.

There's a great app now by the National Air Traffic Service (NATS) which shows you if you're in a No Fly Zone. You can also file a flight plan which let's aircraft and other users know you're in the area.

 

[FakeRaven]

As far as bird attacks go, very few actually manage to knock a mavic out of the sky, if the bird makes contact at all. Mostly they seem to use scare tactics, swooping and diving close but rarely hitting your drone.

The most important thing to remember is leaving the area quickly, with vertical ascents being the most effective way to get them to leave you alone.

I hope you do buy a drone though, don't let our horror stories do too much to deter you from flying!

 

[mkp2020]

+1 on TrayBoz comments. There are around 25,000 members here and the last numbers I saw on that poll included over 600 saying they were happy and less than 40 not happy. That is a pretty solid poll. Go for it!

 

[Clare_G101]

In my opinion, the more you read, you are bound to mostly see more problems people have than success, no one comes onto the forums and says "I have never had any problems with my gimal!" They come to get help if something goes wrong, so you are bound to see more issues on forums than good things, because that is what forums are there for, to help with problems! (And for sharing photos, discussions, etc.) Same with DJI support, they may not be the greatest, but you don't hear when people have really good experiences with DJI because they don't need help, thus they won't post about it, but when they have trouble is when they post (more on the offical dji mavic pro forums) because those mods and people can help. I'd say you made the right decision, I've had mine for a while and I love it! I would recommend getting it insured, not just by DJI, maybe State Farm, I've heard good things, a whole year of insurance for only $60 for a 1k dollar drone, and unlike DJI, you don't need your drone to file a claim, so if it fails and drops in the ocean, you can still get your money back for a new one from state farm, whereas you wouldn't be able to get a new one from DJI.

 

[TTFullTimer]

I think you are not in the USA, so you will be better served by finding out what your local laws and advisories are. As far as you having those flyaway problems, here is my two cents on that. You should always try to fly so that your eyes can see the Mavic. I find that with it against a sky background that is a lot farther than you might think. The second thing that does is to put the controller and the bird in direct line of sight LOS. That is when the signals will be better. NFZones are real. Some DJI assumptions about the precise boundaries are smooshie. So use an official map for your area before you fly to see if you are truly in a place where you should not fly. Most of it is plain old common sense which does not seem to be so common nowadays. There are a number of ways to work around the false NFZ portions of the DJI assumed boundaries. A word of caution here. Before you do anything determine the firmware version on your Mavic as soon as you have it unboxed and have a charged battery to use for power. First off get a version of DJI Go4 with numbers at the end of 7 or lower. That can be done if you use and APK for android. I think there is some sort of workaround for IOS too. Don't be hasty. Don't load latest DJI stuff. There have been new versions put out by DJI that are less than tested. Once you have that loaded look for the how to avoid mandatory update stuff. Then and only then plug in your mavic to Assistant 2 or DJI Go4. Find your firmware version. If it is a number ending in 400 or 700 thank your higher power and go get a handful of lottery tickets. Under no circumstances should you upgrade the firmware until a whole lot of things get sorted out. Stay right on those firmwares. If it is 800 or 900 then look for a thread on here with VMware in the title.

Two firmwares and three or four Go4 changes in a few weeks cannot possibly have been tested properly before putting them out for us to use.

So to keep your bird. Stay in line of sight. Know the area you are flying over and be sure to keep sufficient altitude to clear whats below. Be sure that you have a good home point. So even if things happen the bird will return to home. Many tests have been done to prove that. It works.

Nod nod wink wink Steve Barnes is your friend for how to do things. Adiru and others for a lot of research and development.

The Mavic is an incredible piece of tech.

 

[Londroner]

Thanks to all who have responded thus far. I'm very impressed by the cogent, reasoned replies given to my somewhat naive question. It's so rare to find a forum where members actually take time to help and advise beginners without resorting to derision and judgement. Maybe drone pilots are the most mature and rational species on the internet! Why aren't you called in whenever the mainstream media runs the latest 'drone scare' story?

 

[jeremybirn]

The biggest fear I have for most expensive camera equipment that most consumers buy is that it'll spend most of its years stored in a closet until it becomes obsolete.

I've only had my Mavic Pro for a few weeks now, but so far I am loving it. The camera is at least as good as most high-end cell phones, so in good light you can get some excellent shots, and some of the camera angles it can achieve are breathtaking. I hope I get out often enough that I can find a lot of situations to use it. I'm still very nervous each time I take off, and each time I try something new with it, and each time I temporarily lose sight of it while flying, and I certainly hope I don't crash it or lose it, but really as long as I don't do anything stupid I think the bigger issue making sure I go out and do awesome stuff with it enough to really take advantage of what its capable of. Especially for people who live in a big city, it's traveling out into open spaces (and bringing your drone when you do) that are the real keys to getting your money's worth out of them.

 

[WEOTN]

Your experience will reflect your preparations. Read the manual cover to cover 3 times, even before you get your Mavic. Then go fly once. Look up the questions you now know you have. Read some more, try another feature, study, fly a bit, study. There is SO MUCH this bird can do it won't all be mastered quickly. Take it in steps. Your skill and enjoyment will grow along with your confidence.

Most important, study the return to home feature. Know your local terrain and set the RTH altitude above anything likely between you and your bird. Turn on collision avoidance. Do not fly over water until you have confidence, or floats on it. Read the manual again. View your movies and figure out things you want better, like smoother tilts and pans, so tweak the controls yourself, then try Cinema mode. Experiment. Study. FLY!

Learn from others mistakes so they do not become your own. Don't fly indoors until you can really control it, then maybe use prop guards just in case. Same goes for woods or near vegetation or trees. Prop guards can save you if you're low enough. Hit a tree at 50' you might get stuck or slam into the ground. Don't back up unless you're sure your bird is in the clear. Common sense, good judgement, take it in steps and grow with it.

The mavic is a great craft for beginners. I am one and this is my first real drone (I don't include the Parrot1 from 7 years ago). I'm still learning and enjoying it. I'm getting ok with flying sideways while turning to keep the subject centered for some nice effect. I still mix up gimbal up and down but getting better.

Use your trepidation to fuel your passion for learning, but don't let it stop you from the great reward of owning your own and flying it. That would be a sad thing.

 

[tastetickles]

I'm a new mavic owner as well, less than a couple of months.

In this couple of months I have upgraded the firmware more times than I actually fly the mavic, do I regret my decision of getting it? It's a yes and no, I generally like all RC toys but the "no" part is I can't fly it whenever and wherever I like and there is a lot of information to digest before one can really fly worry free.

I'm lucky because I fly a parrot mambo before getting a mavic so I at least knows how to manually land and the parrot being so light is easily blown away by even a slight breeze so the mavic is a lot more stable in comparison. What does this have to do with beginner flying, u might ask. Well my first mavic flight just to see if everything works out of the box end up with me unable to land the mavic normally with the RTH and auto land feature of the remote controller. So I had to land it manually because the drone refused to land on the surface where I took off. If I hadn't learn this on the parrot, I'm pretty sure I would panic or crash the mavic.

Now I am still reading the manual over and over again and just playing with the app and remote control to familiarise myself with where the controls are and be able to navigate the menus and such. The amount of features on the mavic is just a lot and kinda overwhelming.

 

[Londroner]

@WEOTN Thank you. Sage advice indeed.

 

[Vic14]

113 Flights, clipped a couple trees because of my own doings. No other issues to this point..

 

[Johnmcl7]

The Mavic was my first drone and it certainly is daunting once you have it in your hands and knowing it could fall from the sky, crash into something or fly away but in the six months I've had the drone and it's all good with no crashes and no damage to the Mavic. The only slightly hairy moment I've had with it was a drop of GPS and switching to ATTI mode however from reading the Mavic forums I knew this could happen and what to do so the Mavic landed fine.

When I received the Mavic I followed the recommendations suggested in this thread, I read carefully through the manual, I watched some videos about common pilot errors and how to avoid them, had a good read through the forums to get familiar with any quirks and to understand how people had crashed their drone and how to avoid that then finally took it to a wide open area to get started with it.

 

[vashon100]

... and, like any new pilot-in-waiting, am vociferously absorbing every scrap of knowledge I can find online, from ......

You probably mean voraciously.

 

[Hedonist222]

My only concern is with the frequency of unnatural and unhealthy firmware upgrades that seem to yield negative experiences to people.

 

[MavicMo]

You are not alone.

When I was contemplating getting into AP, exactly how much money was I willing to spend on something I may fly once and never see again was my number 1 consideration. At one time it was no more than 500 USD. Today, its more of a function of how much drone do I need/want/can afford. I've got several DJI drones now and even owned an Inspire 1 that I had over 2500 USD in to.

There are things that are within your control and there are things that are not. I personally believe that "fly-aways" are mostly avoidable with proper pre-flight procedures that your drone is really ready to go. This includes environmental factors as well.

Fortunately, DJI drones are the best pro-sumer drones out there. While you read about fly-aways, they are really a very small number compared to successful flights. Also when you read about fly-aways, its usually someone fairly new to the hobby or drone.

It is said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So how dangerous is a lot?

I am hoping to buy a Mavic Pro in the very near future and, like any new pilot-in-waiting, am vociferously absorbing every scrap of knowledge I can find online, from this excellent forum to YouTube and beyond. Problem is, the more I read/see/hear the more concerned I become about the validity of my decision.

Whether it's fly-aways, NFZs, bird attacks, hostile locals, LOS or just plain drones falling out of the sky I worry about sending a £1,000+ piece of gear off into the unknown with no guarantee of its return. Am I alone in this feeling?

Can any experienced MP pilot offer reassurances that I'm doing the right thing? It's an exciting hobby I'd like to be part of but not if I'll just be pouring money down a black hole.

Appreciate your help.