I ran a search of this forum with “Litchi” as the keyword, but didn’t see any posts addressing the use of a Mavic Air1 to fly Litchi waypoint missions, so I decided to devote this my second ever post in this forum to the question of a Mavic Air 1’s Litchi compatibility and performance.
With my trusty Mavic Pro 1 and Phantom 3 Standard, I’ve logged over 3,000 miles covered almost exclusively under the control of Litchi’s superb waypoint missions. With those old workhorse drones, I typically see flight times of about 21 minutes during which 6 miles of distance is covered round-trip, leaving the drone with 15% to 20% battery on arrival to land.
Now that I’m about to join the League of Distinguished Mavic Air 1 Armchair Aviators, thanks to an eBay purchase that is inbound at this time, I decided to consult the various online oracles to find out how much flight time I can expect out of a Mavic Air 1 if it is flown under Litchi control exclusively, and at rigorously stabilized cruise speeds.
From my research in various online forums, I gather that 15 or 16 minutes of flight time is about the average attainable battery life for a Mavic Air1 launched with a full 100% battery charge. Since most drone fliers don’t utilize waypoint planning facilities like Litchi, I got to wondering whether the total battery life per flight could be nudged up slightly if the drone is flown with the tight speed regulation that occurs during autonomous waypoint flights.
I’m really curious as to whether the fixed cruise speeds that can be maintained for Litchi’s waypoint missions could translate into more efficient use of battery power that in turn could add another couple of minutes to that nominal 15 minutes of battery life per flight for the Mavic Air 1. Any thoughts on this subject that can be shared would be greatly appreciated.