Damaging The Ventral Sensors Upon Landing

[LowCountryFlyer]

Given that the Mavic series of sUAS have little or no landing gear to speak of and you have precision sensors on the bottom of the aircraft, how does one avoid damaging the sensors or scratching the lenses or or viewports over them? I'd think because of this that landing pads would almost be mandatory for long life or that landing gear extensions required if no landing pad is available (This is one feature I appreciated in the Phantom series of sUAS.

 

[brett8883]

Given that the Mavic series of sUAS have little or no landing gear to speak of and you have precision sensors on the bottom of the aircraft, how does one avoid damaging the sensors or scratching the lenses or or viewports over them? I'd think because of this that landing pads would almost be mandatory for long life or that landing gear extensions required if no landing pad is available (This is one feature I appreciated in the Phantom series of sUAS.

You do need a flat surface to land though this isn’t as big of an issue as you’d think and those sensors aren’t as fragile as they look but there are a few solutions and you already touched on one wgixh is the landing pad. You can also:

1) hand catch, avoid the ground alotogether takes a little practice though

2) get landing gear extensions. I like these from Polar Pro because they fold up so you don’t need to remove them when storing the drone

 

[Former Member]

Yes, the bottom sensors are subject to being scratched or broken. Most of the time, the Mavic lands pretty level, and there is no pressure on the sensor covers. If you land hard, or on something like gravel, they will scratch, and then the bottom plate might need to be replaced so that the sensor cover does not interfere with what the sensor sees..

 

[Thomas B]

I avoid time (battery power) constraints and landing in gravel, tall grass, etc. Like Brett8883 I use the newly redesigned PolarPro landing gear. Folds well, fits in my case w/o removing them, and gives an extra inch of ground clearance.