Are Drone Propellers Dangerous? Stay Injury-Free

Some people actually feel that drones are safe even when flying around their heads. I don’t want to tell you that drones are dangerous. I think it’s the same as a car. If you know how to drive safely on the polygon, you will drive safely on public roads also. Even after obtaining a license, try to drive safely. If there are a lot of drones in the air, one or two accidents will occur. However, accidents that can be prevented will not be prevented unless the person who teaches drones, for example, has a dangerous flight or does not fully educate about the danger.

So Are Drone Propellers Dangerous? Yes, drone propellers are dangerous, and can cause serious injury in most cases if you get caught in sensitive areas such as your fingers, face or eyes. Even if you think that drone is dangerous, you don’t actually feel that danger. To reduce the risk of propellers, drones usually have propeller guards.

Table of Contents

How Sharp Propellers Can Hurt You?

However, in reality, the speed of the drone propellers (eg Phantom) are 9000 rpm. In other words, 9000 revolutions per minute or 150 revolutions per second. And as you can imagine, the angle of the propeller must be sharp to gain lift. Drone propellers can be a weapon on the other hand. Therefore, propeller guards would be advisable to get for your drone.

The drone, with a wingspan of about 90 cm, present a real danger. We can say that the four independent propellers (1,200 volts each) can be very sharp when they work. They can cut the skin or go deeply inside your body or finger. Then all four batteries contain lithium. If we pierce them, they can catch fire or explode. If we water them, it explodes.

How to Prevent and Indicate Danger of Drone Proppelers

I think that is because there is no video that expresses the danger of drones. If you go to a school, you can show safety education videos even if you hate it? As an example; there is a car hitting a bicycle. Therefore we have taken as an example also. The reason for using sausage is to show how drone proppelers are dangerous, because the experiment was conducted assuming that sausage = human finger . Actually, human fingers are harder with bones and muscles, but I used them because they are quite similar in thickness and grip.

The sausage used was Itoham’s Royal Paul winner. It consists of pork, mutton and beef. The drone found in this experiment is Phantom. To avoid danger during the experiment, it was fixed on a desk so that it would not fly off. The propeller is a plastic propeller. It is used by many major drones such as Phantom3, Phantom4 and Inspire1. Pilots wear gloves, and people with sausages wear gloves as well. The experiment was conducted in a reserved ground where there were no people. The purpose of this video is to raise awareness of the dangers of drones. It’s not a negative campaign, nor is it a joke. Because there is such a danger, it is a content that everyone on the teaching side, the side of usage, and everyone should be careful . Let’s actually watch the video

Example of how drone propellers can be dangerous: DRONE VS SAUSAGE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kcOTN-DvfM

What do you think? If you apply sausage to a full-throttle propeller, it will be cut cleanly. If you think of this as a person’s finger, you will be surprised. The drone is still small, but it will be horrible if it becomes a large aircraft.

What we can conclude: The most dangerous part of drones is the propeller that rotates at high speed . Certainly, if the drone itself falls from a high point and hits a person or an object, it is equally dangerous. However, drones are only a special danger because anyone can fly over them. In addition, when the drone hits something, the propeller at the forefront will first collide. If a propeller that rotates at high speed and hits a person like in this video, it will be a terrible accident. Therefore, safe flight is recommended through the installation of a basic propeller guard. Try to fly safely and prepare before each flight.

Propeller Guards: Make the Drone Safe to Use

Do you need a propeller guard for those who have been flying drones for a long time? Everyone needs a propeller guard, because no matter how much experience you have, something unforeseen can always happen. It conforms to the additional requirement “having a structure that reduces the danger of contact with a third party or property” specified in the examination guidelines when flying. This is a very inexpensive thing to get, and I see no reason why anyone would not use it especially if it was an in-house flight. You have quite a selection of propeller guards on Amazon, and you can choose the one that suits you at different prices. You can click HERE to check propeller guards for your drone.

2 Examples Of How Drone Propellers Are Dangerous

1. The Power Of a Drone Propellers That Cuts Into a Chicken

This is another experiment with a propeller. In this video the chicken was used to show how much drone propellers are dangerous. In this video we can clearly see at 1:05 min how the propeller of the drone cuts and enters the inside of a chicken with ease. We can see that about 4.5cm has cut into the chicken. Of course, human beings are protected by muscles, skin, bones, etc., so they can not be cut so far, but soft fat parts will be cut off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgeRchTHxVk

2. Drone Propeller Hazard

In this example we see the drone that stands on the ground and its propellers spin at full speed and gaining lift. The propeller is rotated by a motor, the rotation of course is very high speed, and the propeller is very sharp (to lift the aircraft) to increase lift. This propellers is as dangerous as it looks. Experiments have been conducted on how powerful it is (which you can see in the video). The music flowing behind the flowing video seems to speak of fear, but it’s not an exaggeration.
The videos of the experiment are fruits, vegetables, and sweets, but you can easily imagine that it would be hard if you were human. Even when you are not flying, the power of this rotation is the drone’s propeller.

https://youtu.be/TFR2OkH9Gto

Drone Regulations For Safe Flight

Drone regulations are added and revised daily to promote safe flight. That’s because drones can be dangerous if used incorrectly. There is no doubt that the spread of drones will progress further, but it is a major premise to fly safely, which is why it can be used in various scenes. Knowing the dangers of a drone is the first step in making a drone safe to fly so that it doesn’t make it dangerous.

How Dangerous Can Be if Drone Fall During Flight

The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) is the US equivalent of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation ( DGAC ) in France. She attempted to assess the risk of injury following the fall of a drone , as part of a study started in September 2018: “Ground Collision Study”. The consortium that conducted this research included the University of Alabama-Huntsville, Mississippi State University and the University of Kansas, with the assistance of ASSURE (Alliance for System Safety of UAS Through Research Excellence). INSURED represents twenty-three of the largest research institutions in the world and one hundred of the leading US industrial and government players.

The research team examined the techniques used to evaluate head injuries, penetration injuries and lacerations – the most important threats for people on the ground:

What could happen if a drone fell on someone?
What would be the risk of serious injury?

Could these risks be reduced?

The team from Mississippi State University classified the severity of the consequences of a fall by identifying the dangerous features of drones, such as unprotected propellers. The group also reviewed more than 300 publications from the automotive industry and the battery market, as well as toy standards and the database of the Association for Unmanned Vehicles International Systems. Finally, the researchers conducted collision tests, dynamic modeling and kinetic energy, energy transfer and collision dynamics analyzes.

In addition, the report defines the characteristics of different unmanned drones and provides a detailed assessment of payload characteristics, minimum mass and speed thresholds (ie too low to regulate), credible scenarios for assessment, injury mechanisms defined as energy/kinetic energy thresholds, propeller energy thresholds, and UAV design features that could mitigate injury.

When the studies were completed, staff from NASA, the Department of Defense, FAA Chief Scientists and other experts conducted a thorough evaluation of the results. This data will enable the FAA to set new standards and rules for UAV manufacturers to enhance the safety of their flying aircraft.

Check The Area Before The Flight

It is also very important to check where the drone flies and the surrounding area. If you don’t check in advance what can be an obstacle, the risk of collision increases. Even if you can control a high level of technology like a drone, you can’t call it a pilot if you overlook an obstacle. Obstacles that might be overlooked on the display taken by the drone must be confirmed in advance. In addition, the drone itself will be checked thoroughly. It is important to ensure the safety of the aircraft by checking carefully before flight and after flight, as well as ensuring that parts are loose and deteriorated and that maintenance is always indispensable.

The Drone Without Propellers (new technology)

Do you know the NOTAR system? No Tail Rotor? It is a large helicopter system designed to save a propeller, that of the anti-torque. Equipped on some models, it never really prevailed on the market. It sends air but no rotating element is visible. The common point between these two objects? The airflow and the economy of blades, noisy and dangerous.

It sounds a little contradictory but as we do not know exactly what is under the skirt of the Bladeless Drone, maybe I use the expression without rotor wrongly. Because if we know that the air is sucked from the outside to the inside, then towards the mobile fairings during the flight of this strange machine, we need a rotor at one time or another, whether to suck or redirect the airflow. In the case of the hair dryer, the motor and the blades are located vertically to the hollow circle. The air is propelled and directed in the direction of the cylinder. For the Notar system, the air is taken and redirected to the tail of the drone. An picture of what a drone without propellers looks like is below.

A Experiment That Shows The Horror Of a Flying Drone

The more drones that fly in the sky, the greater the risk of contact with an airplane . So what happens if it really collides? Kevin Poorman, who is responsible for collision physics at the Dayton University Institute in Ohio, fired a DJI drone from a 40-foot long air cannon. In the United States, more than 100,000 drones are flying every day. Concerned about the impact, Poorman decided in the summer of 2018 to produce a video that can intuitively understand the dangers that lovers drones pose to airplanes.

„We have facilities to actually fly various types of objects. It’s not enough to fly a drone and see what happens“ Poorman says. Poorman decided to use the largest steel air cannon in the lab for this test. It weighs 2,800 pounds (about 1.27 tons) and 12 inches (30.48 cm) in diameter. The air gun was loaded with a drone and fired vigorously from a 40-foot long barrel. The drone pushed out by the force of compressed air flew at a speed of 238 miles/hour (about 383 km/h). This speed is almost the same as the speed of the drone in flight and the speed of the airplane in landing. About 1 / 300th of a second after launch, the drone collided with the main wing of the propeller.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA_BbujPfM8

Conclusion

Yes, drone propellers are dangerous no matter what type of drone you have (maybe we can exclude mini drones in this case). Therefore, with each use, care and attention must be paid to how we operate it. What we can do to reduce the danger (or eliminate it completely) is to add a propeller guard on your drone. In this article, we could also see some examples of where drone blades were tested and demonstrated their effectiveness. If I left out something or you want to add, feel free to write in the comments below.