DJI Air 4 Caught In Chinese Flight-Filing App, The First Registry-Level Sighting

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.

I have been tracking the Air 4 since Bogdanov’s first hashtag-tagged battery photos in May 2024. What has been missing across the eighteen months since is exactly what this screenshot delivers: the model name written into software a Chinese drone pilot would actually open before takeoff.

The dropdown reveals where Air 4 sits in DJI’s lineup

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 with a blue checkmark 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.

A registry entry is a different category of signal than a prototype photo

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.

The US availability question is separate from the China launch path

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.

DroneXL’s Take

I have been writing about Air 4 rumors since May 2024 and the prototype crash photo in February 2025. Until this screenshot, every piece of evidence pointed at hardware that DJI was prototyping. This is the first piece of evidence that points at hardware DJI is preparing to operationalize. Database listings come last in the development cycle, not first. The Mavic 4 Pro followed the same pattern, with retail packaging and ordering-page leaks surfacing in the final weeks before its May 13, 2025 launch.

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. Whether DJI gets a narrowed FCC determination, a court-ordered reset, or a Walmart-third-party-only path like the Mavic 4 Pro is an open question, not a prediction. What the registry sighting confirms is that DJI is not waiting for an answer before moving the hardware.

Source: Igor Bogdanov via X (@Quadro_News).

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.