Nearly a disaster. Lesson learned!

[GVDD scout]

i went to fly my P4A at work the other day. I mounted the props and pulled upwards on them gently to check they were attached, however when I started the motors one of the props shot into the air to quite a height, then made a graceful landing. I guess I had not engaged the bayonet fully so a pull upwards would seem to indicate it was locked however when the motor spun up it backed it out of the bayonet and off it went.

Good thing it happened on the ground and I’ll definitely be more careful to check they’re locked

In my first few months of flying, I lost more props that way than by bad landings, crashes, etc. Standard practice for me now is to grip/restrain the motor from underneath, engage the prop from above with the correct twist-push motion. When done give the prop a light back and forth rotation against your grip on the motor. If it's good with that, you should have no problems. Better than having to knock on the door and ask the owner for permission to get the prop back to control their dog, etc. Just saying it might happen that way...

 

[PhantomWetSuits]

We posted about this problem before as there were a lot of new pilots claiming the props would fall off in flight, and this is what we found with are research.
One of the advantages we have is that we rarely ever take off the props as we never carry the drone in the case so that is a plus.

But if you look at the picture below of the actual Prop , you will notice how thin the actual connector tab is on the Prop and what may be happening is that New Flyers forget which way to turn the props to lock an unlock and over time , making that mistake, and honestly we all do it at times, The connector starts to bend up as shown in the picture below.

What surprised was how thin the connector was and how I could bend a brand new one back with my finger nail with some force.

Many Pros use screw on Props and we Utilize the Phantom Rain Wet Suit as that also locks on the props using the Prop covers.
The advantage is if you hit some branches , the props have a better chance of staying on and keeping your bird in flight.

Also when you do hit branches ect , it puts a lot of force on the props and most likely should be checked , which means
pulling on those tabs to see if they were cracked.




So if you new be careful of how many times you twist the props the wrong way. it will save you
Phantomrain.org Approved Vendor , home of the Phantom Rain Wet Suits.

So this is what the Props look like on the Phantom Rain , That ring locks in the Props and gives it some absorption and stops the water from getting inside the vents.