So, if I'm bringing my Karma down, for instance, I'll find my landing zone, and start walking around the center of it in a wide circle.

If I'm bringing my Mavic down, I'll try the same (albeit with concrete preferred over grass because the landing rudders on the Mavic is virtually nonexistant)

But the process of landing takes about 20 seconds that way.

at least.

The hand catch lets me ignore my other landing protocol. Grasp it from beneath (avoiding the proximity sensors), kill the motors, bug the hell out. 5 seconds is all it takes to kill the motors.

But yeah, Drones are scary, and should generally be treated with the same regard as a weapon when it comes to personal responsibility.

Otherwise, this sort of shit happens.

Shark drone.

Sheet

My potato probably can’t do that ya?

Can it fly?

As far as I can tell yes.

I’ll just assume that if I get too close in the wrong way it can do a significant amount of damage.

This is apparently a wound that came from a mini drone.

Those are generally about the size of a cell phone.

And a little bit lighter.

Bad times.

This one MIGHT have actually been a slightly larger mini

But the wound that I linked above?

That wound was caused by the Karma.

Karma flys with relatively dull blades.

Karma is bigger than the potato I think.

I'll fill you in on one more thing, then.

As a drone pilot, in the event an injury occurs, the FAA gets involved.

The FAA recognizes 5 things they refer to as 'Hazardous Attitudes'

Antiauthority, Impulsivity, Invulnerability, Macho, and Resignation.

If you ever try to become, say, a professional drone pilot, you're required to be familiar with these attitudes and the hazards they present.

(Or if you try to become a full pilot)

Is the FAA a worldwide thing or just US? If it’s just US it’s not relevant for me.

Oh, I thought you were in the states. You talked about a visit to Alaska.

Canadian?

No my parents were on vacation in Alaska. They got back home today.

(Pro tip, avoiding the five hazardous attitudes are still good rules to live by)

(When handling anything that could be potentially unreasonably deadly, such as power tools, cars, drones, weapons etc. etc)

For instance, people tend to have a saying that 'everyone has a Negligent firearm discharge eventually". That is actually pretty close to Resignation. The proper response is to keep in mind that anyone CAN have a negligent discharge, and use that as a reminder to take safety precautions extra seriously.

But anyway, wherever you are, just be safe, know your country's drone laws, and have fun. And if you ARE in Canada.... I'm so sorry.

Thankfully I’m not from Canada.

Good. Canada has RIDICULOUSLY stringent laws. Like, think Youtube community guidelines applied to drones, where no matter what you do you're probably breaking a law.

I’ve read into the laws here a bit and I’ll need to read them again but the max height I’ll be able to fly at is around 150ft. Professionals get a little more leeway.

```Under the new [canadian] recreational drone rules, you can’t fly:

Higher than 90 meters (300 ft.) above the ground
At a distance of more than 500 meters (1,640 ft.) from the operator
Within 75 meters (246 ft.) of buildings, vehicles, vessels, animals, people or crowds
At night or in the clouds
Within 9 km (5.6 miles) from the center of an airport or other facility where aircraft takeoff or within 9 km of forest fires
If your drone doesn’t have your name, address and telephone number labeled on the aircraft
In a way that interferes with first responders or police```