Will the Mini 3 cause more injuries by new pilots?

[Skyryder]

While it is technically not recommended to had catch your drone per DJI statements, almost every Inference on YouTube does this like it's second nature. Now the the Mini 3 has no front legs, it sits on the ground like a frog rocking back and forth if the wind is blowing, which could damage the props if still spinning. I cant help but think this is going to encourage MORE hand catching by consumers. Which is fine I guess but it also has bigger blades. Even the Mini 2 can cause some serious lacerations. The bigger the blades the deeper the cuts.

 

[SmilingOgre]

I always thought it was absurd to have to tell people not to stick their hands in fans for fun but I guess it needs to be said in this day in age.

 

[Skyryder]

There's a technique to hand catching, I dont think anyone sticks their hands into the blades on purpose. But there is more than a few videos of people claiming they got cut really bad by doing it wrong.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

I suspect mini 3 props will 'bite' worse than mini 2 & Mavic Mini props but, due to the ease with which Mini series props rotate about their pivots, I also suspect they will not have the slice and dice capabilities of similar sized rigid props or even stiff pivot folding props.
I have caught my fingers with either Mavic Mini or Mini 2 props and it hurt but it did not break the skin but it was a proper leading edge strike and not an blade tip slice.

 

[Torque]

Keep in mind the Mythbuster video was filmed with rigid props. The folding props on the Mavics will not cause as much damage as the FPV's rigid props.
I am not willing to test my theory on my own hands, however.

 

[JimSteadman]

Watch the wind test video to the end. He does a hand catch and immediately flips it over - and that stops the props! I've only done a hand catch once and still have all 10 fingers, but if it is as simple as flipping it over and you have a good solid grip, that is new to me at least. Not for the faint of heart or those with sweaty fingers...

Another poster responded with something like "Oh, yeah, they all do that." Well that may be the case, but I look at this site pretty regularly and have never seen it before, so it was news to me. I did battle with a Mavic air inside a church one day and finally showed it who was boss, but not easily. It was not responding to the controller to land, so I got it close, grabbed from the bottom and finally was able to shut it off. Flipping it over would have been a lot easier than hanging on with one hand while I used the other to press the button -twice - to shut it off.

 

[Torque]

I suspect mini 3 props will 'bite' worse than mini 2 & Mavic Mini props but, due to the ease with which Mini series props rotate about their pivots, I also suspect they will not have the slice them and dice them capabilities of similar sized rigid props or even stiff pivot folding props.
I have caught my fingers with either Mavic Mini or Mini 2 props and it hurt but it did not break the skin but it was a proper leading edge strike and not an blade tip slice.

Yup. my thoughts too. I didn't read your post before repeating this theory in my post...oops.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

He does a hand catch and immediately flips it over - and that stops the props

Personally I treat "grab and twist" as a special circumstance only method of landing and stopping the motors. Not a for routine use, others may use it as a matter of routine but I fear that may place repeated excessive loads on the drone and motor bearings.

In relation to the video I think the grab at least was justified.
The Mini 3 has , in my opinion, a design flaw, an extremely narrow undercarriage footprint and will, I suspect, be prone to being blown over whilst the motors are shutting down during a normal ground landing. Landing in a cupped hand, which is how I normally land the mini 2 etc, ) might over come this but the drone was moving around a fair bit, and he had 1 aborted attempt at a grab, so a normal hand landing would have been rather dicey.
A ground landing would, I think, have been dicey from a tipping point of view. Plus it would have been landing on a salt water wetted surface, not the most sensible of places for him to be stood in the first place. Both the drone and the controller got sprayed at various points in that video because of where he was stood.