Your experience with the Mavic Air 2

[Rchawks]

Come on now you know you've flown one, what did ya think?

 

[Mbpd312]

I'm with you. The forum has went silent since these are hitting the doorsteps.

Come on now you know you've flown one, what do ya think?

 

[Mitch]

I'm with you. The forum has went silent since these are hitting the doorsteps.

People will post concerns as they encounter them.

 

[Gealousy]

I got mine Mother's Day but didn't fly because, you know, wife.

But I flew it today, only got to go through 2 batteries. This is my first Mavic, I had a cheap GPS drone before this one so I have nothing really to compare to other than this thing was freaking awesome. Flew perfectly, great vision on the screen, App was good. I can see why people were concerned because it is probably lacking some of the features everyone is use to but for me this was a huge upgrade and I thought it was amazing.

My neighbor/friend that got me in to this has a MP2 and a Zoom and he was out there with me for my first run at it and he was super impressed with how quiet it was and the quality of the build, for what that's worth (he's been in this for years now).

So it was really cool and I have zero buyers remorse, and wish I had 2 just because... ha!

 

[z28lt1]

Couple of short flights. Spome random thoughts on what stands out:

• Compared to Air 1, so much quieter and better sounds.
• Very responsive -- flies somewhat differently (better)
• As someone used to the telemetry of the Go 4 App, I hate how the map/heading work on the Fly app. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong where I have to manually try to zoom the map or what, but I'm just to not used to it. I'm sure over time I'll get used to it, and it will seem more natural
• I like the fly app overall though. Getting into active track or a POI is quick and easy
• My backyard is awful for testing distance. Besides being in a heavy wifi usage area, I have tall tress behind me and the house in front, so line of site to the drone is really hard. As such, my distances from there are bad (but I mostly only test flight from there). Heading out over the trees, probably got about 1200 feet distance on the orginial MA. About twice that with the MA2. Never tested the phantom there. In the next couple of days I'll go to a better flying spot and get a better feel for signal.
• The new controller does feel much better to hold in the hands as may people said, and I like the phone on top. Overall the fly more bag is pretty small, so as long as I'm comfortable not having the drone in a hard case, the overall space it takes up isn't too much greater. I had been using the original Mavic Pro bag to keep the controller, extra batteries, and orginal air in a hard case. That is still a little smaller than the new bag.
• Speaking of bag, the bag, while soft, has a molded liner where the drone goes to cover the first bit of the drone (the gimbal and front) to give it a little extra protection and keep it steadier in there. It has the one pocket on the front, but will miss the open side pockets were I kept the extra batteries.

Overall, really happy. Think this one is a winner.
I can update after a few more flights. If anyone has questions, go ahead and ask....

 

[Rchawks]

People will post concerns as they encounter them.

Good or bad, just wanted to know how it went.

 

[briwiphoto]

Love it! The video quality just out of the camera is great so far. I need to play with the cine profile and come up with some LUTs. Handles super nice. Love it so far.

 

[Hiflyer808]

Couple of short flights. Spome random thoughts on what stands out:

• Compared to Air 1, so much quieter and better sounds.
• Very responsive -- flies somewhat differently (better)
• As someone used to the telemetry of the Go 4 App, I hate how the map/heading work on the Fly app. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong where I have to manually try to zoom the map or what, but I'm just to not used to it. I'm sure over time I'll get used to it, and it will seem more natural
• I like the fly app overall though. Getting into active track or a POI is quick and easy
• My backyard is awful for testing distance. Besides being in a heavy wifi usage area, I have tall tress behind me and the house in front, so line of site to the drone is really hard. As such, my distances from there are bad (but I mostly only test flight from there). Heading out over the trees, probably got about 1200 feet distance on the orginial MA. About twice that with the MA2. Never tested the phantom there. In the next couple of days I'll go to a better flying spot and get a better feel for signal.
• The new controller does feel much better to hold in the hands as may people said, and I like the phone on top. Overall the fly more bag is pretty small, so as long as I'm comfortable not having the drone in a hard case, the overall space it takes up isn't too much greater. I had been using the original Mavic Pro bag to keep the controller, extra batteries, and orginal air in a hard case. That is still a little smaller than the new bag.
• Speaking of bag, the bag, while soft, has a molded liner where the drone goes to cover the first bit of the drone (the gimbal and front) to give it a little extra protection and keep it steadier in there. It has the one pocket on the front, but will miss the open side pockets were I kept the extra batteries.

Overall, really happy. Think this one is a winner.
I can update after a few more flights. If anyone has questions, go ahead and ask....

Quickshots can be done in 4k? Can you get it to follow you from the front for a reasonable time before it switches to behind you?

 

[GadgetGuy]

It doesn't handle wind at all well, which makes the 34 minutes flight time at 11 mph with no wind a very misleading flight time with any wind. Like the Mini, it's too light to efficiently make headway into the wind. Every mile of headwind results in a mile of reduced top speed in both Normal and Sports modes, while the Mavic 2 loses less than a half a mile of top speed, per mile of headwind, and is most efficient at 31mph, while the Mavic Air 2 is most efficient at 27mph.

Flying into a 10mph headwind, top speed was 18mph in Normal mode (27mph max).
Switching to Sport mode (42.5mph max) only increased the top speed to 31mph.
Stayed in Sport on the outleg, and returned in Normal mode at 27mph.
Landing at 7% remaining battery resulted in only a 22.5 minute flight time, covering only 9 miles. No net gain in flight time, and no gain in total distance over the Mavic 2 for my style of flying.

Mavic 2 in P mode into a 10 mile headwind would be at 26mph with only a 10% reduction in flight time over no wind, and a 23 minute average flight time to 5% remaining battery, but easily covering 10 miles.

A second MA2 flight, with lots of hovering for 6 panos and staying in Normal mode in between the panos resulted in a 27 minute flight time covering only 5.2 miles, landing at 5% remaining battery.

No ability to save the 26 original images for the panos, let alone shoot them in DNG. No expo control over the yaw for smoother turns. 20MP saved original stills from the M2P from panos run circles around the 13MP final stitched result on the MA2 with no access to the 12MP originals. 48MP capability from the 1/2” sensor is decent and better than a plain 12MP shot, but still can't match the dynamic range of a 20MP still from the 1” sensor on the M2P. No control over the front red LED's to keep them off.

Note: The Remote Identification Broadcast toggle to OFF does not survive a reboot, and must be manually turned off as part of the preflight routine, upon every boot up! Much like the GEO toggle of yore, expect this toggle to soon disappear, forcing the broadcast of your flight to everyone with DJI's detecting smartphone app!

You'll need to use the iPad app to unlock any authorization zones as the iPhone version won't let you enter the six digit authorization code in the boxes on the screen!

Careful about the much lighter airframe. I didn't initially unfold the props, and the spin up caused the drone to slide off my small launching table, almost leading to disaster, until I gave full left throttle to immediately lift it off the table.

Turn your phone volume down to almost zero, unless you want your neighbors to hear every announcement, including every loud shutter click of a 26 shot pano, which screams "I'm taking pictures of you!" even though the drone is 1/2 a mile away! The annoying beeping below 10% is on the RC, so it is still annoying, but not nearly as loud as the M2 remote. It will still attract unwanted attention.

You'll need a longer USB-C to Lightning cable for any iPad use, and most table mounts still work. No place for a lanyard, though.

4K 60fps video is buttery, but the lack of yaw expo reduction means the turns are still too whippy.

Charge all the batteries in the FlyMore kit off the Hub separately on the original charger for the initial charge from hibernation.

 

[SlushFlight]

It doesn't handle wind at all well, which makes the 34 minutes flight time at 11 mph with no wind a very misleading flight time with any wind. Like the Mini, it's too light to efficiently make headway into the wind. Every mile of headwind results in a mile of reduced top speed in both Normal and Sports modes, while the Mavic 2 loses less than a half a mile of top speed, per mile of headwind, and is most efficient at 31mph, while the Mavic Air 2 is most efficient at 27mph.

Flying into a 10mph headwind, top speed was 18mph in Normal mode (27mph max).
Switching to Sport mode (42.5mph max) only increased the top speed to 31mph.
Stayed in Sport on the outleg, and returned in Normal mode at 27mph.
Landing at 7% remaining battery resulted in only a 22.5 minute flight time, covering only 9 miles. No net gain in flight time, and no gain in total distance over the Mavic 2 for my style of flying.

Mavic 2 in P mode into a 10 mile headwind would be at 26mph with only a 10% reduction in flight time over no wind, and a 23 minute average flight time to 5% remaining battery, but easily covering 10 miles.

A second MA2 flight, with lots of hovering for 6 panos and staying in Normal mode in between the panos resulted in a 27 minute flight time covering only 5.2 miles, landing at 5% remaining battery.

No ability to save the 26 original images for the panos, let alone shoot them in DNG. No expo control over the yaw for smoother turns. 20MP saved original stills from the M2P from panos run circles around the 13MP final stitched result on the MA2 with no access to the 12MP originals. 48MP capability from the 1/2” sensor is decent and better than a plain 12MP shot, but still can't match the dynamic range of a 20MP still from the 1” sensor on the M2P. No control over the front red LED's to keep them off.

Note: The Remote Identification Broadcast toggle to OFF does not survive a reboot, and must be manually turned off as part of the preflight routine, upon every boot up! Much like the GEO toggle of yore, expect this toggle to soon disappear, forcing the broadcast of your flight to everyone with DJI's detecting smartphone app!

You'll need to use the iPad app to unlock any authorization zones as the iPhone version won't let you enter the six digit authorization code in the boxes on the screen!

Careful about the much lighter airframe. I didn't initially unfold the props, and the spin up caused the drone to slide off my small launching table, almost leading to disaster, until I gave full left throttle to immediately lift it off the table.

Turn your phone volume down to almost zero, unless you want your neighbors to hear every announcement, including every loud shutter click of a 26 shot pano, which screams "I'm taking pictures of you!" even though the drone is 1/2 a mile away! The annoying beeping below 10% is on the RC, so it is still annoying, but not nearly as loud as the M2 remote. It will still attract unwanted attention.

You'll need a longer USB-C to Lightning cable for any iPad use, and most table mounts still work. No place for a lanyard, though.

4K 60fps video is buttery, but the lack of yaw expo reduction means the turns are still too whippy.

Charge all the batteries in the FlyMore kit off the Hub separately on the original charger for the initial charge from hibernation.

Eh, YouTube guys that know their stuff have showed it to handle wind fine. Also battery tests have been done that show it lasts longer I’m the air. The other photography items I can’t compare as I haven’t used a MP2 extensively.

Still your experience might not be the same. Temps and altitude may make up the difference in other people’s results. I’m sure in Florida the drone acts different from Colorado.

 

[NLOL]

"Like the Mini, it's too light to efficiently make headway into the wind " - I think not. "weight" has nothing to do with 'making headway into the wind". It will travel at the same air speed regardless of wind - head, tail or none - air speed remains the same.

 

[UnivTex34]

i only had time for a short flight before the wind kicked up, but I missed the Pano mode, or are you doing it manually? I thought maybe it was going to be added later as I didn’t see it.

 

[JustAGuy]

Coming from a Mini, it's better than I expected. The huge step up in raw power and wind handling capability was expected. I expected the camera to be a bit better, but the HDR image and video modes have blown me away. I'm very happy with the purchase.

The attached image was not edited.

 

[JustAGuy]

i only had time for a short flight before the wind kicked up, but I missed the Pano mode, or are you doing it manually? I thought maybe it was going to be added later as I didn’t see it.

It's there, under the photo modes. I didn't get around to trying it out tonight.

 

[SlushFlight]

Coming from a Mini, it's better than I expected. The huge step up in raw power and wind handling capability was expected. I expected the camera to be a bit better, but the HDR image and video modes have blown me away. I'm very happy with the purchase.

The attached image was not edited.

Very nice shot! yes, the camera is a good one. It might not be better than the MP2, but its not a million miles away in quality.

 

[Deleted member 94047]

A lot of nuances there @GadgetGuy, thanks! Not being able to keep the individual DNGs from the Pano is very disappointing.

 

[z28lt1]

Quickshots can be done in 4k? Can you get it to follow you from the front for a reasonable time before it switches to behind you?

I will try to test more today if possible. My quickshot did come out at 1080p and I didn’t immediately see a way to change it. Note it didn’t tell you it was going to be 1080p —had to look at the video to know.

On my active track test, it stayed in front of me when I walked into in a straight line, which is really all I did. From the videos, I imagine turning with any speed will have it follow, but I’ll need to test this as well.

 

[WayneMHK]

Careful about the much lighter airframe. I didn't initially unfold the props, and the spin up caused the drone to slide off my small launching table, almost leading to disaster, until I gave full left throttle to immediately lift it off the table.

I noticed the props "stuck" together when folded more than some of the other fold-able designs. I didn't unfold them the first time and the aircraft did jerk a little when they were first spun up. I can imagine that would be a problem on a smaller raised launch platform. Need to add a step to unfold props before spin-up. However, my firs impression is that the props are amazingly quiet, at least when compared to the original MA, even with Master Airscrew props installed.

 

[StubbornSwiss]

For those of you who also have the Mavic Mini, what is the sound (volume / pitch) compared to the mini's?

 

[Beeda]

Coming from a Mini, it's better than I expected. The huge step up in raw power and wind handling capability was expected. I expected the camera to be a bit better, but the HDR image and video modes have blown me away. I'm very happy with the purchase.

The attached image was not edited.

I've just been looking at the picture like a 'where's wally' image trying to find you in it!! )