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DJI Mavic Air flies 1.25 miles in Texas on 5.8GHz Wi-Fi band

Yesterday, a YouTuber was able to fly his new DJI Mavic Air drone up to a distance of 1.25 miles away from its take-off location in close to ideal circumstances. Impressive as this may seem, it falls well short of DJI’s advertised FCC range of 2.4 miles.

Wi-Fi band and altitude may have reduced the range

Ready Set Drone flew his new DJI Mavic Air in almost ideal conditions in Texas last Sunday. He was able to fly the drone as far as 1.25 miles away from the take-off location, flying the drone at about 300 feet high and using the 5.8GHz Wi-Fi band.

In the comments, some people suggested that he may have been able to fly the Mavic Air further if he had chosen the 2.4GHz Wi-Fi band instead. It is also possible that he would have been able to fly a greater distance if the drone would have been flown at a higher altitude or if the pilot had been positioned at a higher altitude himself, like a hill or a building.

DJI has decided to use enhanced Wi-Fi for the Mavic Air instead of OcuSync as they do for the Mavic Pro or LightBridge for the Phantom. Both the Mavic Pro and Phantom have a greater range available with 4.375 miles.

In the YouTube video, the drone is being flown with the stock antennas. We are planning on doing similar tests ourselves with our matte Onyx Black DJI Mavic Air soon.

https://youtu.be/8ucWx7eqnfU

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Avatar for Haye Kesteloo Haye Kesteloo

Haye Kesteloo is the Editor in Chief and Main Writer at DroneDJ, where he covers all drone related news and writes product reviews. He also contributes to the other sites in the 9to5Mac group such as; 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, 9to5Toys and Electrek. Haye can be reached at haye@dronedj.com or @hayekesteloo