Hello,

I have ordered my Mavic Pro and have to wait a few weeks before it arrives. I own a few Tiny Whoops and an Aton (which I lost my first one in a fly away). Looking at the feature set of the Mavic I figured I found something that would be more stable and allow for me the range to get some amazing shots. I had read and watched lots of reviews and everything seemed to be glowing praise. It seemed to have lots of systems for accuracy to safeguarding your investment.

After I purchased my Mavic, I started watching every tutorial video I could get my hands on and I have printed out the instruction manual to read ahead of its arrival. Ive been reading everything on this forum. I understand that Forums are a place where you get the voices of the few yet loud minority who are having issues while the majority of people are out there having fun with no need to complain. It of course has made me a little nervous and left me with questions.

1) How many of you are actually flying over big cities? I live in San Francisco and some of the threads have me a little nervous on where I can safety fly. So any SF people that can chime in or any bigger cities flyers to give me an idea what to expect or to avoid. I want to make use of this and not have it gathering dust cuz I have nowhere safe to fly it unless I get way out of town (though I know I really want to fly this thing up the coast of Mendocino)

2) How prevalent are lost drones? I know these often are because of user error

3) What are the biggest user errors that result in lost craft that you've seen?

4) How much assist is involved in sport mode? can this craft do controlled flips?

5) Any other things I should know to enjoy this craft without too much stress and worry?

Thanks in advance for the help and insight
DT

I had a toy drone before the Mavic and find it really easy to fly the Mavic. But I am not using the Mavic as a racing drone. I get it into the air to take nice photos and videos.

But I do follow a few basic rules:

• I do not fly farther than I can see, so that I can bring the Mavic back when it looses GPS and camera.
• I do not fly over private buildings, so that I have to knock on someones door to ask to get my drone back.
• I do not fly where many people are. I try not to disturb others.
• I do not try out funny stuff like "Hey, can you fly under that tiny bridge?" or "Let's see how close you can get to the wings of that windmill!" or "Let's use Active Track to follow a car through the city."
• Before I fly I check the area for trees, towers, electrical wires to see where problems could show up.
• I try to follow a technical checklist when flying: GPS ok? Homepoint set and save? RC signal strong? Wind direction good or bad (might be bad when your battery is low and you fly home against the wind)?
• As I primarily focus on photos and videos, I am planning my flights.
  

With all this, I had a few situations in which the app crashed and the controller lost signal. But everything went smoothly.

Hey there. Here's some info.

There is almost zero assist in sport mode. Please use with caution. This isn't a trick drone so there's none of that. This really is an "aircraft" in every sense of the word.

I'm not in SF, but I do live in Atlanta. So I have an understanding of big cities. Although I could really get into the weeds, essentially, you need to be five miles or more from an airport. And if you read the FAA regulations, you really are not supposed to fly over people/traffic. I would look for public parks that don't have posted regulation against UAVs and plenty of space.

If you are interested in really getting granular, I'd suggest looking into taking the Part 107 written test. Studying for that test is a great way to really learn all the ins and outs of regulations. It also arms you with tons of informations (and certifications) to combat naysayers or people who question what you are up to when you are out flying.

Good luck! I love my Mavic. I think you will too.

Also. Regarding question #5. Can't stress enough how important it is that you take your time getting off the ground with the Mavic. It's got so much power and functionality it s easy to get sucked into doing something you are not prepared for. Baby steps.

Thanks Guys, I appreciate the advice. Having lost the Aton, I do take all this very seriously and want to get the most out of this purchase

Plus ive always got my FPV tiny whoop if I want to get stupid! lol

1: make sure you have the home point and obstacle avoidance on

1: make sure you have the home point and obstacle avoidance on 2: Be cautious when you try to get brave and fly close to the ground or objects (especially in wind!) 3: remember that when it hits 10% it will automatically return to home (Don't do this under a tree!)  4: you will crash eventually so don't get too brave 5: make sure if you fly at distance that it is set to return home when rc signal loss occurs (not set to hover)

Spend time getting to know the bird at close range an in an open space.  Do not put too much faith in OA.  1) Many reports of OA preventing a return home when facing the sun. 2)  It does not detect tree branches, power lines etc with any sort of dependability.  Be aware that line of sight is critical even at fairly close range.  Fly behind a building a few hundred yards away and you will likely loose communication with it. Know and understand what the MP is going to do on RTH when you press it or signal is lost. Don't press the batteries range, especially at first.

Here are my thoughts on your questions:

1) How many of you are actually flying over big cities?
I'm not in a large city, but based on comments I've seen you're right to be concerned that your (legitimate) options are likely to be pretty limited. You might have better luck asking this as some kind of poll (large city, densely populated suburbs, etc.)

2) How prevalent are lost drones?
I don't think anyone on here can really answer that reliably. My perception is that the number of people here who've lost their drones is pretty low compared to the overall participation rate, even before taking into account the tendency of people who've had bad experiences to be more vocal.

3) What are the biggest user errors that result in lost craft that you've seen?
You've already gotten a lot of good feedback from others, but one I don't remember seeing in this thread is to be sure your RTH altitude is set sufficiently high. Failure to do that seems to be a pretty common error for new fliers.

4) How much assist is involved in sport mode? Can this craft do controlled flips.
Not much. No.

5) Any other things I should know to enjoy this craft without too much stress and worry?
Your chances of having a serious mishap are pretty low if you fly carefully and give yourself time to get to know what the Mavic is capable (and incapable) of. For example, you asked about sport mode; personally I use it sparingly, and I'd recommend avoiding it until you've gotten used to flying without it.

Read the FAA guidelines and follow safety rules and procedures and you should be fine.
Have lots of practice with the drone before trying challenging things.

Most of all, enjoy the flight and have tons of fun.