been flying for about eight months now and i keep seeing people set up these landing pads before every flight. i fly mostly in parks and fields and so far i've just been hand launching and catching which works fine for me. but i did have one incident last month where some dust and a tiny piece of gravel got kicked up on takeoff and i was paranoid about it for days even though nothing actually happened.

are landing pads genuinely worth it or is it more of a nice-to-have thing that looks professional but doesnt really change much. also if they are worth it what size do people usually go with, i see 50cm and 90cm and im not sure what the difference matters for something like a mini 4 pro

honestly they're worth it. not so much for looking cool but for real practical reasons ? tall grass can mess with the downwash sensors, sandy or dusty ground is genuinely bad for the motors over time, and if you're somewhere muddy it just keeps everything cleaner. i fly at the beach sometimes and i would never land directly on sand without one now.

for a mini 4 pro the 50cm is totally fine, the 90cm is more for larger drones or if you're doing a lot of auto-land. the 50cm ones fold up really small and weigh almost nothing so there's really no reason not to throw one in the bag

i was skeptical too but yeah after getting a bunch of debris in my last mavic i started using one every time. also helps you spot where you're landing when the ground has a lot of visual clutter, the bright orange is easy to see on the fpv feed. mine cost like 12 bucks and its been fine for over a year so not exactly a big investment to try it out