My first distance flight with my Mavic Pro

[iowahill]

I just came back from a couple of days at a favorite resort in Northern California where I tried flying my Mavic Pro line-of-site toward a mountain that was maybe 8 miles away. Stock Mavic Pro with settings in DJI Go 4 that allowed me to change distance and height limitations, and using my iPad Mini 2 running DJI Go 4 with camera view. Flew just shy of 3 miles away and maximum altitude from point of launch about 1200 feet. But remember that the legal maximum flight altitude of the bird is 400' AGL. My flight path was ascending in such a manner that I likely was never illegal.

As I was approaching 16,000' horizontal distance from my launch point my battery was showing about 70% remaining. Though surface winds were calm I took the conservative choice to turn around and head home because of uncertainty of winds aloft, though I would have had a tail wind helping. I was in P mode with ground speed showing at 22 MPH.

Video recording of the flight was excellent at 2.7k 4000p. I noticed that the entire mp4 recording of the flight of about 18 minutes was broken into two files, the first just shy of 4GB and the second around 1.7GB. So I guess that the DJI video has a maximum file size of 4GB before rollover to another file.

Just my fresh FYI for those of you with other P or Mavic series drones who are going for distance and maybe recording the flight.

 

[Wilbur]

I've got a P3S but am very heavily considering getting a MPP. It folds up to a much smaller size, is quieter, has a better camera, and the distance potential is really enticing. I can't imagine 16,000 feet; the farthest my Phantom has gone was 3,200'. It's not even that I want to fly 16,000' out, it'd just be nice to have no issues with interference at 1,500'-3,000' away like I often do with my P3S.

 

[iowahill]

I've got a P3S but am very heavily considering getting a MPP. It folds up to a much smaller size, is quieter, has a better camera, and the distance potential is really enticing. I can't imagine 16,000 feet; the farthest my Phantom has gone was 3,200'. It's not even that I want to fly 16,000' out, it'd just be nice to have no issues with interference at 1,500'-3,000' away like I often do with my P3S.

I have two of the Mavic Pro's, not out of choice but out of circumstance. I crashed my first one the day after I bought it when shooting video of our house and grounds, but was coming back from the rear of the property in reverse and didn't account for the palm trees in front. Collision avoidance doesn't work from the rear of the bird. Crashed and trashed the camera and gimbal and scratched up the case pretty good, along with a broken prop. My best love insisted on replacing it for me with a new one. But I managed to rebuild the first with a new housing and camera/gimbal assembly, so now have two of theses beauties. I think they would do over 4 miles line-of-sight and return in favorable conditions and fresh battery. They do everything and more that I bought and modded my four P2V+ birds to do for mapping and survey work. My opinion is that they are a terrific bang for the buck, though a learning curve (like all new technology) needs to be addressed.

 

[iowahill]

I've got a P3S but am very heavily considering getting a MPP. It folds up to a much smaller size, is quieter, has a better camera, and the distance potential is really enticing. I can't imagine 16,000 feet; the farthest my Phantom has gone was 3,200'. It's not even that I want to fly 16,000' out, it'd just be nice to have no issues with interference at 1,500'-3,000' away like I often do with my P3S.

I also installed the Mavic Platinum props on my birds to see if they truly are quieter and more efficient. They seem to be quieter for sure. Don't think I'd be interested in spending the extra bucks for the Mavic Platinum for the extra bucks though. After all, the only other apparent benefit is the "improved ESC"? The original ESCs seem fine to me.

 

[Wilbur]

I also installed the Mavic Platinum props on my birds to see if they truly are quieter and more efficient. They seem to be quieter for sure. Don't think I'd be interested in spending the extra bucks for the Mavic Platinum for the extra bucks though. After all, the only other apparent benefit is the "improved ESC"? The original ESCs seem fine to me.

That's what I like about the idea of the Platinum tho. It's not just about the props making it quieter, the improved ESC lowers the pitch. Studies have shown lower pitched noises are less noticeable and less annoying. I live in a big city and trying to find places to fly away from people can be tricky, so I like to draw as little attention as possible.

 

[iowahill]

I don't think you'll be disappointed. These birds are really well engineered. My Mavic Pros are 1st gen and have the stock ESC's. But installing the MP Platinum props was a simple switch. I'm not convinced that the ESC would contribute any more than the choice of finish though. Go for a box-stock Mavic Pro, fly it a bit, then maybe buy the Platinum props for it. I still have about 7 sets of unused Pro props that I will likely never have a need for unless an unplanned crash occurs. But these birds are easily the easiest and most stable to fly. But spend the extra hundred bucks for the Platinum if you think the ESC hoopla and custom finish will do ya right!

 

[AnchorageAk]

I just came back from a couple of days at a favorite resort in Northern California where I tried flying my Mavic Pro line-of-site toward a mountain that was maybe 8 miles away. Stock Mavic Pro with settings in DJI Go 4 that allowed me to change distance and height limitations, and using my iPad Mini 2 running DJI Go 4 with camera view. Flew just shy of 3 miles away and maximum altitude from point of launch about 1200 feet. But remember that the legal maximum flight altitude of the bird is 400' AGL. My flight path was ascending in such a manner that I likely was never illegal.

As I was approaching 16,000' horizontal distance from my launch point my battery was showing about 70% remaining. Though surface winds were calm I took the conservative choice to turn around and head home because of uncertainty of winds aloft, though I would have had a tail wind helping. I was in P mode with ground speed showing at 22 MPH.

Video recording of the flight was excellent at 2.7k 4000p. I noticed that the entire mp4 recording of the flight of about 18 minutes was broken into two files, the first just shy of 4GB and the second around 1.7GB. So I guess that the DJI video has a maximum file size of 4GB before rollover to another file.

Just my fresh FYI for those of you with other P or Mavic series drones who are going for distance and maybe recording the flight.

You can set the file size of the video in the DJI Go.