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.
