If it was important DJI would have advised.
You asked them and they said nothing about 20, 40, etc hours.
Hitting hard objects is what damages props. Spinning in air isn't going to wear out small nylon props.
Hmm, my 20 hours maybe too short, I agree.
Maybe 200 hours, but I don't think that's 2000 hours (1000 hours is continuous 40 days flow of Phantom, or 3000 times change of battery!!).
IMO the reason that DJI tech cannot tell the lifetime is, not they did 1000 hours of running test but don't open to us, but they simply have never done 1000+ hours of prop running test. DJI test pilots maybe in much better condition than we are, they can use free new props - I believe no DJI test pilot had been using using single set of props more than 1 hour.
I'm worrying not yet happened sudden death of healthy props, because, not I'm nervous (my friends always say I'm optimist
), but I'm flying with 2 sets of props this 5 month (200 times, 15 hours total), without crash. It's surprising - I've been flying traditional RC helicopters for decades of years, and some multi, but never experienced single prop flying est. 30+ times (maybe 3 hours) without crash. But P3 is a great machine - It never crashes this 5 month and continue flying 15 hours. Maybe more in future, and I'm afraid the first crack of a prop, burnout of a motor or an ESC will come earlier than first crash by mistake, and that'll cause first & last crash of my bird. I think I can sense a glitch of motor or ESC in pre-flight check. But prop breakage is catastrophic; I don't think if a small crack by material fatigue begins when takeoff, the prop can hold to the end of that flight - 20 minutes, 100 stress by turn/ascend/descend, 140000 rotations. And, some "mysterious" falling reported here maybe because of that... much suspicious than "IMU bug" or "no calibration of compass"...
