Two questions please;
1 - Regarding pulling the control sticks down & in or out to stop the motors inair, is there a way the switch this feature off please?
I fly very carefully and never high or far away. But I'm concerned I may accidently cross the sticks in flight. I have Cine mode set with heavily damped controls and often pull the sticks to the end-stop. I'm concerned I may inadvertently want to pan left while descending and rolling right.
2 - Also, what does the Mavic 3 consider an Emergency ( which combined with crossed sticks) will shut down the motors?

It takes several seconds to stop the motors. Try it next time you start the motors, but before taking off. It has to be deliberate, not going to happen accidentally.

Yes it has always been my standard way of stopping the motors on ground (Phantom0, I2P, M2P)  but just the fact that it’s possible in air gives me the shudders. Thanks for yr response.

Hi, Ralphhuttonthompson. Thank you for reaching out. At the moment, there are two methods of stopping the motors. First, you can push and hold the left stick down, and second, use the CSC (Combination Sticks Command) and push both control sticks to the bottom inner or outer corners.
For stopping the motors mid-flight, Method 2 is used.

And regretfully, this cannot be turned off for safety reasons. As mentioned in Mobilehomer's comment above, it will take 2 seconds for the motors to stop after the command has been initiated. As we know, stopping motors mid-flight will cause the aircraft to crash. The aircraft motors should only be stopped mid-flight in an emergency such as, if a collision has occurred or if it is out of control and is ascending or descending quickly, rolling in the air, or if a motor has stalled. But, since you are suggesting having an option of turning it off, we will have it forwarded to our engineers for consideration. Thank you for your understanding and support.

The position is known as the CSC, the manual describes it use,. No one other than DJI knows precisely what constitutes and emergency, if you browse other DJI drone manuals you will find descriptions of what the associated drones consider to be an emergency though I doubt the description will be of much use to you or anyone else, it's too vague in my opinion and/or the drone would be already falling if some of them had occurred.

The summary of all the following is, that if the response to a CSC position is set to the default, "Emergency only", the drone is highly unlikely to stop its motors whilst the drone is in flight. And that is irrespective of how long the position is held.

With the default setting set and the drone in cine mode (simply because it gives the slowest horizontal and vertical speeds),  I have 'descended' a mavic mini from around 100m with the sticks in the CSC position the whole way down. All that happens is that the drone descends in a perfectly controlled helix and even automatically slowed its descent as it approached the ground, when I released the sticks the drone hovered.
If you are feeling brave you can test this by hand holding the drone, starting the motors and then giving the drone throttle to make it try to take off from your hand, make sure you have a good grip of the drone. Once the motors are fighting you, wobble the drone fairly vigorously ( to simulate flight) and, with the CSC response set to emergency only, try the CSC position. I think you will find that the motors continue to fight you. If you hold you hand still, to simulate the drone on the ground, and the motors will stop.
I wouldn't have the drone fight you for long, I do not know how easy it is to cook the Mavic 3's ESC's.

HOWEVER, if you change the CSC response to "Anytime" or whatever name the alternative setting is, I suspect you will/would find that the CSC WILL STOP the motors with the drone in 'mid air' AFTER the CSC has been held for around 1.7 seconds, it is around that time with the Mavic 2 and the first two Minis.

Neither option is ideal but "Anytime" has FAR TOO SHORT a delay period to be safe as the normal setting ...... so "Emergency Only" is the better choice.

And yes flying the drone with the response set to Anytime has cost as least two people their drone.

BTW the stick positions you describe in post 1 are missing full reverse. Just descent, yaw, and roll is not the CSC  position.

Thanks for both your detailed feedback. As u say Sean, we seem to be in the dark as to how the drone sees an emergency combined with CSC but I don’t intend to test these things, I always fly with lots of caution.
I have a commercial pilot license and it’s hard not to think of being in the pilots seat, even if in fact I’m planted safely on the ground. I hope DJI offer an OFF option in future for motors off in flight.

Ralphhuttonthompson Posted at 11-26 05:22
Thanks for both your detailed feedback. As u say Sean, we seem to be in the dark as to how the drone sees an emergency combined with CSC but I don’t intend to test these things, I always fly with lots of caution.
I have a commercial pilot license and it’s hard not to think of being in the pilots seat, even if in fact I’m planted safely on the ground. I hope DJI offer an OFF option in future for motors off in flight.

That's not going to happen as there needs to be a way for a pilot to stop the motors at anytime, including being airborne.

Ralphhuttonthompson Posted at 11-26 05:22
........... I hope DJI offer an OFF option in future for motors off in flight.

I doubt that DJI will introduce an off option ........ even though the current "Emergency Only" virtually amounts to the same thing.
I doubt many pilots, finding themselves in a situation where they would wish to stop the motors in mid air, would, in their possible state of panic, have the presence of mind to find and change the response mode before applying the CSC. I think, with the Phantom 4 s they changed it to a combined controller button press and a certain stick position but a P4 owner would need to confirm or refute that. With the P3 there was no 'emergency only' thing, effectively there is only 'anytime' BUT the delay period is/was I think 4 seconds. Whatever the longer delay is it is long enough to give one a chance to catch oneself using the CSC position and release it. I did once catch myself with the sticks inadvertently in the CSC and released it but I have only made that mistake once.

One final point, if you ever did accidentally stop the motors in mid air, and had the height to play with, there is a chance that a SECOND, note "second " CSC - meaning you would have to release the first CSC, might restart the motors. If so full throttle might halt the fall in time to save the drone. BUT the risk is that if the drone falls in a tumble its angles of tilt will prevent a restart.
Here, or on mavic pilots, someone did recently do a successful restart with a falling Mavic Mini or Mini 2 but the drone was too low when the motors restarted and from memory it either hit the ground and broke or bounced and crashed and broke.

Well on the light hearted side of things, I’d say if you’ve never had a moment of panic flying a drone, then you’ve not flown a drone much. :-)

Ralphhuttonthompson Posted at 11-26 05:52
Well on the light hearted side of things, I’d say if you’ve never had a moment of panic flying a drone, then you’ve not flown a drone much. :-)

Very true. Oh I added some stuff to post 10, it might be of interest.

That would require quick reactions but sounds possible.
The original Phantom (2012 era) had a true manual mode and some daredevils posted on YouTube, the phantom doing loops and rolls, and cutting the motors, letting it tumble then restarting the motors.

Ralphhuttonthompson Posted at 11-26 06:15
That would require quick reactions but sounds possible.
The original Phantom (2012 era) had a true manual mode and some daredevils posted on YouTube, the phantom doing loops and rolls, and cutting the motors, letting it tumble then restarting the motors.

I think you will/would find the free fall speeds to be around 14 to 16m/s, so if high enough you might have a few seconds to play with but if done as an experiment I would CSC the drone let go of the sticks give them 1/2 a second or so just to register that they have been released and then put them back into the CSC position and hold them there until the motors restart or the drone hits the ground. If the motors restart give full throttle immediately.
This is based on hand held wobble experiments with a Mini and an M2P/Z.
Obviously if the drone were low then you have very little time to react.

I have done a mid air motor stop and restart with a P3 and it's 'thrilling', the P3 etc. has the advantage of readable DAT's on the drone so I can see what happened during the free fall. But with the question of whether a 'mavic' will be level enough to permit a motor restart I haven't tried it. I have seen a youtube of it being done with either a Mavic 1 or Mavic 2 but my 'bottle' doesn't go that far lol.