Hack your Mavic 2 Pro to Acquire Attitude Mode

Learn how to get the most from your Mavic 2 Pro when you hack the bird to acquire attitude flight mode for buttery smooth flight movements! Many professional drone pilots love to use attitude mode on their DJI Phantoms, Inspires and Matrice’s!  Attitude mode turns off all positioning control, yet maintains altitude when flying around. This particular flight mode has many benefits to pilots, seen and unseen. Videographers and cinematographers alike love attitude mode for the ability to fly smoothly without violent interruptions from the flight controller.

Novice pilots showcase this disastrous lack of pilot understanding when they’re filming something very smoothly and then all of a sudden, the drone abruptly stops moving. With GPS mode, when a pilot stops stick input when flying, the drone comes to a stop.  This feature is called active braking, which can be smoothed out but rarely offers full control.

Attitude mode allows the drone to be filming a subject on the move, and when the pilot stops stick input, the drone continues to “float,” in the direction it was already moving.  The only force acting to move the drone would be the wind or pilot input.  This means you can be filming a scene, let off the sticks and continue to film for 10 seconds just to have added space in the clip.  How many times has a director told you, just keep recording… Well, Attitude mode makes those recordings smooth.

Attitude mode could be one of the best “safety” features on a drone.  You’re probably scratching your head right and think I’m crazy. Well, many professional manned pilots and balloon pilots alike are familiar with the Ryan Carrolton Effect which essentially dictates that there are various wind speeds at varying altitudes.  While winds may be a calm 10 mph on the ground, they could be screaming at 60mph at 300 feet, where you need to map. With attitude mode, we can fly to various altitudes, hover, then measure the true wind speed from the drones actual speed. The drone will begin to move with the wind, slowly accelerating with the wind, then stop accelerating and maintain a basic speed.

Attitude mode is also the ultimate way to stop a fly away or a 3rd party application gone haywire.  If you’re drone every begins to fly a route without your input, stick the drone in attitude mode…you now have full control but no GPS. You’ll be able to safely bring the drone home.

Many drone pilots may not even know they had a basic anemometer in their drone bag. Not all pilots should try this, obviously, if you have a very windy day, some pilots may have difficulty controlling the drone against the wind.

So why doesn’t the Mavic 2 Pro have attitude mode?

The only reason that makes practical sense is that the original Mavic Pro did not have attitude mode.  During that time, we produced a video showcasing how to hack the (old) Mavic Pro for attitude mode.  It also makes sense that the Chinese instead choose to use “tripod,” mode on the new M2P because they believed it would be easier for most pilots to use.  It makes sense to provide features for the lowest common denominator, yet we can’t forget the skilled professionals as well.

Here are the step-by-step instructions for how to hack your Mavic 2 Pro.

What will you need to Hack your Mavic 2 Pro?

1. DJI Assistant Version 1.1.2
2. Mavic 2 Pro or Mavic 2 Zoom  (Attempted on Mavic 2 Enterprise, but the drone is fully locked up)
3. USB C cable 
4. Computer (Mac or Windows) Mac is easier.

The instructions in the video cover how to complete the task on Mac, if you’re wanting to complete the task on Windows, follow these instructions:

For those on Windows to open the debug mode:
1. Open the file location of DJI Assistant 2
2. Go into the AppFiles folder
3. Locate main.js
4. Open with Notepad++
5. Delete the “//” in front of line 113. It should now read as follows: mainWindow.webContents.openDevTools()
6. Save (May need administrator permissions to save)
7. Open DJI Assistant 2 and debug will be open

Hope this little “hack” helps you get more out of your drone and aids in acquiring smoother aerials from your drone.

-Paul Aitken

Lead Instructor Drone U