When flying the Mavic, people ask: can the DJI Mavic Pro be hand launched or hand caught? Yes — it’s also a good skill to master if you plan on flying in different terrain.

The DJI Mavic Pro is an advanced drone priced at $999. Yet sometimes landing on the ground is not suitable. For example, if the ground is wet or has snow — the DJI Mavic has such low clearance the gimbal and sensors could get wet. Or if you’re taking off and landing from a boat you will also need to hand catch as it can be very difficult to land on a moving surface.

Launching by hand

There’s a couple methods to launch by hand — the best one is to launch using the Auto Take off mode. This is because you would otherwise need both hands to manually activate the propellers.

Hold the drone in one hand, press the button to take off and slide to confirm. This could be tricky to do one handed with the iPad Mini setup!

Option B) If you have another person available, you can have them to hold the drone while you perform the auto take off maneuver.

Where to Hold the Drone

The safest place to hold your drone is close to the main body, with your hand and arm directly underneath the Mavic. Keep the drone high and away from your body.

Circled: The Chop Free Zone for your hand

How To: Hand Catch Mavic

The safest way is again to use the Auto Land feature to have it land right into your hand. Bring the Mavic to grabbing height then initiate the auto-land and slide to land function. Keep your hand steady and directly underneath. It pauses for a moment before landing so there’s enough time to grab it.

Manual hand catch

If you try to simply bring the drone down into your hand by holding down the left stick, the sensors will detect as an object below and will try to fly away. Instead, you need to disable downward sensors to perform the maneuver. Once that is done, you can land by either using Method 1 or Method 2 below:

We don’t recommend this method because you would need to turn off the downward sensors which makes flight more risky.

Accessories to help with landing