As I already mentioned in my previous post, I recently acquired a DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone. I have been interested in drones for probably the last five to six years but I’ve never really dove deep into the world of drone accessories until I actually owned a drone for myself. One of the accessories that had me scratching my head initially was the landing / launch pads that can be found all over the internet. I couldn’t understand why anyone would need a landing pad for a drone. After all, I’ve watched many YouTubers hand catch these things in videos going all the way back to the Phantom 1 days. These drones can pretty much takeoff from any surface so why do these landing / launch pads even exist? It seemed silly to me that anyone would actually buy and use a landing pad. However, After watching several YouTube videos, and reading their comment sections, I quickly realized there actually was a legit reason for this type of accessory, and it wasn’t silly after all.
Protect the electric motors
One of the reasons to use a landing / launch pad is to keep sand and dirt from being sucked through the electric propeller motors on the drone during takeoffs and landings. Even on a concrete sidewalk (for example) there can be fine sand and dirt on the surface, not visible to the eye, that could be stirred up and sucked through the motors when the drone is either landing or taking off. Now, consider taking off from short grass. Grass grows in dirt, there is dirt under that grass, and even microscopic fine dirt is abrasive and can cause damage in electric motors. I don’t know how fragile these electric motor actually are, but I certainly don’t need to find out the hard way either.
Protect the propellers
Another reason is grass. (mentioned above) The Mavic series of drones, along with others, have very short landing gear, especially the in the rear of the aircraft. If you’re trying to takeoff and land in grass, it better be really short, or you’re going to be cutting grass blades with your propellers…. which isn’t good for the propeller blades themselves, or the electric motors. A nice solid landing / launch pad completely removes this problem.
Precision landing
And probably the main reason for a landing pad is: Precision Landing. The way I understand precision landing is that the aircraft uses it’s vision sensors to get a visual “snap shot” of the exact location where it took off from, so that it can return back and land exactly where it took off from. I’m not totally clear on this but it sounds like when you takeoff, you need to go straight up at least 20 feet and hover a second or two to let the drone get the visual shot that it needs for precision landing. If you don’t allow the drone to get this visual shot, then it will only return to home via the GPS home point location that was set before takeoff, which is not nearly as accurate as precision landing.
Why does the landing pad help with precision landing? Bright colored landing / launch pads give contrast so the vision system on the drone can differentiate between the blah colored ground and the vivid colors of the landing / launch pad. For example, if you were taking off from a concrete parking lot, the entire area is the exact same color. How would the drone’s vision system be able to tell the exact spot where it took off from? The takeoff spot would look exactly like any other spot in the parking lot. But if you had a nice brightly colored landing pad, the drone would easily be able to tell where it cam from.
Which landing pad?
If keeping the motors and propellers safe from damage wasn’t reason enough, once I learned a landing / launch pad would help with precision landing accuracy, I was sold! I now needed a landing pad but I wasn’t really impressed with the ones that were readily available.
The really cheap landing pads are made from very thin nylon tent-like material that folds up like a band saw blade and is kept in a storage pouch. (see below)
These are fine if you’re not looking to spend much money, but they are very light and could easily blow away in a light gust of wind. They are sold with tent stakes to hold them in place but how do you use tent stakes if you’re taking off and landing on hard pavement? Not a great solution in my opinion.
Another problem with fold up lightweight style launch pads is they do not provide a stable surface on soft ground like grass. (like above and below)
Another type of fold up landing pad… instead of folding like a band saw blade, these fold flat like a road map. These are probably a little better that the thin nylon tent-like material landing pads, but still not great. They still do not provide a perfectly smooth level surface when used on grass, etc. (see below) Not terrible, but not great either.
Can I make my own?
I decided that I could make a landing pad that would fit my needs better than any of the ones that are available on the retail market. I own a 24 inch vinyl cutter so that dictates the size of the decals that I can cut. Sure, I can make multi-part decals to make a larger landing pad, but a 24 inch landing pad is plenty large enough to take off from, and with precision landing, it should certainly be large enough to land on, too.
My first landing pad
The first landing pad that I made is red and yellow and is applied to a black piece of HDPE sheet about 3/16″ thick that I purchased from my local Menards. I’m not sure the intended use of this sheet but they sell it by the polycarbonate and acrylic plastic sheets near the window department. It comes in a 2′ X 3′ sheet and is $19.99, if I remember correctly. I cut 1 foot off and made it a 24″ X 24″ square and applied my red & yellow decal….. Presto, instant landing pad that will remain rigid on uneven ground.
Time to make a few more landing pads
I used that new landing pad several times and it worked great. A friend purchased a new drone, along with the Fly More kit so he received one of the lightweight landing pads with his original purchase. We went flying together on his first time out with the new drone. It was slightly windy that day and we found ourselves sharing MY landing pad because it was too windy for his, and we were in a paved parking lot so he couldn’t “stake down” his landing pad. That’s when I decided he needed a one of my custom landing pads.
This time I found a 24″ X 24″ about 3/16th thick, smooth PVC drop in ceiling tile at Menards that was perfect for my application. And just over $6 bucks it was priced right, too!
The green, yellow and black landing pad turned out really nice. This color scheme is unique because it matches his company colors, and his company name went on after this picture was taken. I think it looks great. The 2′ X 2′ PVC ceiling tile from Menards is perfect for this application. It appears they also offer this ceiling tile in black but I only saw white in my local Menards store.
A few extras…
I figured if I found myself in the situation of needing a decent landing pad, then I’m sure there has to be others in the same boat as me, right? I decided to make a few extra simple landing pad decals that anyone could use if needed. These were just basic black and yellow. I made two of them.
If anyone is reading this article and wants a simple black and yellow landing pad decal, click the contact form at the top of this page and send me a message.
Thanks for stopping by Garage Topic…
