been flying for about 8 months now and I've always just hand launched and landed or found a flat rock or whatever. my buddy keeps telling me I need to get a landing pad and I sort of nodded along but then I looked them up and honestly they seem kind of... unnecessary? like its just a fancy frisbee with an H on it

am I missing something here. does it actually protect anything or is it more of a convenience thing. I fly mostly at parks and trails, sometimes gravel paths and grass. the sensors on the bottom get dusty sometimes but nothing crazy.

Honestly for grass and gravel it's more useful than it looks. The main thing for me is that when you're landing in tall-ish grass the props can clip the ground before the drone fully settles, especially if theres any wind. The pad gives you a clean flat surface and the bright orange color actually helps the downward sensors work better on landing too ? I noticed my Mavic 3 descends way more confidently onto the pad vs patchy grass.

Also dust and debris getting sucked up into the motors during takeoff is a real thing over time, so landing on a clean surface just makes sense if you're flying a lot. That said if you're mostly doing short casual flights I wouldn't stress about it, but they're like $15-20 so its not exactly a big commitment.

i thought the same thing for the longest time then i landed in some wet grass and spent an hour drying everything out. got a pad the next week lol. the foldable ones pack down really small too so it just lives in my bag now, barely notice its there