Air 4 Name Drops Into Chinese Flight-Filing Dropdown
The DJI Air 4 has surfaced inside a Chinese drone flight-reporting app, sitting in a dropdown menu of selectable aircraft alongside the already-shipping Insta360 Antigravity A1. The screenshot, posted Monday by drone leaker Igor Bogdanov on X with the caption “Caught…Air 4,” is the first known appearance of the unannounced model in a regulatory-adjacent piece of software rather than a factory-floor photo or a crashed prototype.
Bogdanov, who posts under @Quadro_News and has accurately previewed the Air 3, Air 3S, Mini 4 Pro, Avata 360, and Osmo Pocket 4 ahead of their respective launches, captured the model selection page of an app built around China’s Interim Regulations on the Administration of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Flights. Those rules took effect January 1, 2024 and govern flight-activity filings through the Civil Aviation Administration of China’s UOM platform.
The interface has the consumer-imaging category open, with seven visible models. In order: Mavic Air, DJI Air 3S, Mavic Air 2, DJI Air 2S (selected by the pilot filing the flight), DJI Air 3, DJI Air 4, Insta360 Antigravity A1, and a partially obscured eighth entry ending in “Sphere.” A left-rail sidebar carries five vehicle categories: Consumer Portable, Consumer Imaging, FPV Immersive, Professional Aerial, and Enterprise Industrial.
The information banner above the model list reproduces standard CAAC framing in Chinese: micro and light drones flying inside a suitable-flight zone are capped at 120 meters (micro class at 50 meters) and need no advance filing, while controlled airspace or above-cap altitudes require an application. That phrasing tracks Article 19 of the Interim Regulations, which establishes the 120-meter ceiling for light and small UAVs and the 50-meter ceiling for micro UAVs under 250 grams.
Why a Registry Entry Means More Than a Crashed Prototype
The Air 4 timeline has run on photos until now. Bogdanov posted #A4 hashtag battery shots in May 2024. Long-time leaker Jasper Ellens followed in February 2025 with a crashed prototype showing the top-mounted sensor array now associated with the Mavic 4 generation. Each of those images is the kind of artifact a Chinese factory worker or a delivery driver can quietly photograph and pass to a leaker.
A dropdown entry in a flight-reporting app is structurally different. The model name has to be added to a vehicle reference list that pilots query in production. The list in this screenshot sits next to live, shipping aircraft. The DJI Air 3S launched October 15, 2024. The DJI Mavic 4 Pro shipped May 13, 2025. The Antigravity A1 from Insta360 shipped December 4, 2025. The Air 4 is now indexed in the same list as those three.
That does not confirm a launch date. DJI may have submitted the model name to a registry maintainer ahead of any retail rollout, exactly the way an FCC filing precedes a US release. What it does confirm is that DJI Air 4 as a label is now in production-grade flight-compliance plumbing, not just on test stickers and crash photographs.
US Pilots May Never See This Drone – Here’s Why
A Chinese registry hit tells us nothing about whether US pilots will be able to buy an Air 4. The FCC added all foreign-made drones to its Covered List on December 23, 2025, blocking new equipment authorizations for unreleased foreign UAS. DJI filed a petition for reconsideration on January 21, 2026 and a parallel appeal in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The public comment window on that FCC petition closes today, May 11, 2026.
Industry leak trackers have not flagged an FCC equipment authorization filing for the Air 4 in any coverage to date. For a Chinese release that absence does not matter. For a US release it is the entire question. DJI has continued moving products through Chinese certification while a parallel US pathway either narrows or evaporates depending on how the FCC reconsideration plays out.
What this screenshot does not tell us is timing. Bogdanov’s track record is strong on what is coming. He has not attached a launch window to this screenshot, and reading one into the image would be guessing. The presence of the Antigravity A1 in the same dropdown is the more useful comparison point: the A1 shipped December 4, 2025 and is in the registry now because it is a real product flying in Chinese airspace. The Air 4 is in the registry without any of that ground truth, which suggests DJI is staging it for arrival rather than retrofitting an already-shipping product.
The unresolved question is whether US pilots ever see this drone through an FCC-authorized channel. With the comment window on DJI’s reconsideration petition closing today and the Ninth Circuit appeal still active, the regulatory outcome that decides US Air 4 availability is being decided in parallel with the model’s Chinese rollout. What the registry sighting confirms is that DJI is not waiting for an answer before moving the hardware.
Quick Facts
- •💡 DJI Air 4 appeared in a dropdown menu of a Chinese flight-reporting app alongside shipping models like Insta360 Antigravity A1.
- •💡 The screenshot was posted by leaker Igor Bogdanov (Quadro_News) on May 11, 2026.
- •💡 This is the first known registry-level sighting of the Air 4, unlike previous factory or crash photos.
- •💡 The app is based on China’s Interim Regulations on UAV Flights effective January 1, 2024, with altitude caps of 120m for light drones.
- •💡 US availability is uncertain due to FCC’s Covered List adding foreign drones on Dec 23, 2025; DJI has filed a petition and appeal.