Prior to my new Mavic I did as DJI-Ken suggested and spent $37 on a drone from Amazon waiting for my Mavic to arrive.  What did I have to lose with a $37 drone :-)  It was fun and helped pass the time waiting for my Mavic to arrive.  I ordered on the 28th of September and it arrived the 1st of November.  I've flown it 3 times in the last 2 days.

First Flight: I flew for only 10 minutes and only went to a height of 56 feet and only travelled 673 feet.  I managed to hover over my wife's horses in our pasture and see just how fat they are from 56 feet in the air LOL ;-)  Then I pushed the magic return to home button :-O  Just as advertised it zoomed right over to where I had taken off from and came to about 1 foot off the ground and a took over from there.  Wow!  Much easier that flying that $37 drone from Amazon! These first 10 minutes seemed like a lifetime.

Second Flight:  This time I grew a little bolder.  I managed 15 minutes with a max height of 289 feet and a distance of just over 2000 feet.  This was a height test for me to see what 300 feet in the air would seem like from the perspective of the camera and what the drone would look like in the sky.  At about 200 feet I basically couldn't hear the drone anymore even though it was right above me.  The drone was also very difficult to spot since I had been looking at my NVIDIA SHIELD K1 8" Tablet for much of the flight.  But, I had others spotting for me.  I flew a short sweeping pattern over my property then pushed the return to home button once again. About 10 seconds later I could hear the Mavic arriving. Another successful flight.

Third Flight: My most recent flight was an interesting one.  I live in a rural area in Montana just outside Helena.  I decided to make a larger circle around my property at about 200 feet.  This flight would take the Mavic a little closer to town and over some railroad tracks and a well traveled rural road. about half way into my flight I had a big scare :-O  I received a warning from the DJI software about AIRSPACE VOLATION.  I was like what the heck!  The only planes I have fly over me are at least 2000 feet above me because I live at the base of a hill that towers another 800 feet above me.  I read the message presented by the software and checked off two boxes saying that i wanted to proceed anyway and the software allowed me to proceed with my flight.  It was a little scary seeing this message when my drone was the furthest it had ever been away from me even though that was only about 1500 feet away.  After i had the Mavic return and had anther successful landing I reviewed the flight log and the flight map (this software is really cool) and noticed the red lines projected for the Helena airport.  It ends up the Helena Airport is 5.12 miles from my property. Even though an airplane would never fly lower than 2000 feet above my home I still received a warning.  I say better safe than sorry.  But, it made for an interesting flight.

Flights to Come: What is to come?  I need to figure out settings for the camera.  I don't see much detail in the owners manual on how to pick recording quality. I need to see what everyone else recommends for a software tool to edit the video Mavic creates.  I want to figure out how to create and use waypoints. I know you need to fly the route first and somehow set waypoints.... ok then what?  I want to see if Mavic can really follow me on my mountain bike all by itself without me having to worry about it.  I also wonder how it will do following me through the sand dunes as I drive my Polaris RZR around the sand dunes.

So far this Mavic is amazing!  Well worth the wait.  Thank you DJI!

Wayne

I believe that the software will automatically force your drone lower in altitude the closer you get to the aerodrome.  Also you might want to make sure you have the proper licensing.   https://www.aopa.org/go-fly/airc ... one-near-an-airport so you don't get fined.  In the US it is http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text ... 4cfr107_main_02.tpl
Hope that helps.

Lepus Posted at 2016-11-6 18:41
I believe that the software will automatically force your drone lower in altitude the closer you get ...

Thank you :-)  I have my FAA number and have it on my Mavic along with my phone number if i ever do lose it.

I'll also be flying my Mavic with the NVIDIA Shield K1 8" android tablet once the drone's actually arrived. The tablet's the perfect size and the performance with that Tegra K1 chip is top-notch.

As for which video editing app to use in editing your Mavic footage, I'd recommend Sony Vegas Pro 14.0. I've been using the app for quite a long time, and it works beautifully on powerful hardware. Just be sure to set pixel format to 8-bit in File > Properties or you'll experience some lag when editing 4K footage. Either purchase it legally or save yourself a ton of cash and pirate it from kickasstorrents, up to you.

Enkeixpress Posted at 2016-11-6 19:19
I'll also be flying my Mavic with the NVIDIA Shield K1 8" android tablet once the drone's actually a ...

I picked up the  DJI Mavic 7-8" Tablet adapter for my NVIDIA at https://www.etsy.com/listing/487 ... -7-8-tablet-adapter

WayneHuntley Posted at 2016-11-7 11:16
I picked up the  DJI Mavic 7-8" Tablet adapter for my NVIDIA at https://www.etsy.com/listing/48700 ...

Neat. Will probably order one of those. But the Mavic's controller is more than capable of holding the NVIDIA Shield K1 by itself with no other accessories needed, just need to remove the internal usb side connection to make enough room, so that the sides of the Shield K1 slide in tightly into the two slots. YouTube video below explains everything.