DIY Portable RC UAV Landing Pad for under $5

It's best to have a nice debris free area to land and take off from for your UAV. Sand, dirt, sticks, even grass hitting the blades, are enemies of the gears, motors, the electronics and cameras on your UAV be it a Heli or Multirotor .

An inexpensive rubber exterior doormat is a simple, portable landing pad for your Heli or Multirotor UAV that is very inexpensive compared to available RC Landing Pads you can either use as is, or modify to suit your tastes.  It's heavy enough not to blow away and light enough to roll up and take with you.

Total cost for mine with mod - $3.50 each. And a whopping cost of only $2.50 if you don't go getting all fancy like I did. Or splurge and get real fancy. Your imagination the only real limit and personally, I'm thinking small lights for use when night flying.


At the Family Dollar store I found the simple rubber door mat that I used. It's 40x60cm (15.5inx23.5in) in size. Not too heavy, but heavy enough not to fly away in the wind. Had a fairly flat bottom which is what I used for the "landing" side, and could easily be rolled up and be taken where-ever I want to fly.
Cost: On sale for $2.50. (at the time of this writing.) I picked up two.

You can stop there. That's really all you need. But I wanted to make this "mine" and remembered I spotted a round plate charger type foam thing over at Dollar Tree for a buck a piece. Grabbed 4 as I don't think they are super durable. But felt they'll last a good while and look pretty cool. If nothing else, they'll make a plain door mats into great practice exercise pads since they come in different colors.

Put some thin double sided tape around the bottom edge and in the middle of the foam plate charger thingy and stuck it in the middle of the door mat. Centered on the backside of the door mat and BAM! One RC Landing pad, done!

Grabbed the other color charger stuck some double sided tape to it like I did the first and BAM! Two Landing pads... done!

Two Custom Landing Pads done in less than 10 minutes.

How cool is that!

This is a no brainer. No cutting, no fuss, no mess diy kick butt landing pad. In my choice of colors. They roll up and are the exact same size as my Dromida Vista FPV box. Perfection never came so easy!

Rolled up and held with a small Velcro strap

It's ready to go flying with!

How do they look with a quad on it? Take a look... you be the judge.

Finished Landing Pad with a Dromida Vista FPV

250 class quadcopter parked on it.

As an alternative, you can look into using Floor Guard Pads as seen below as a landing pad. Though they are lighter in weight, they are larger and would suit nicely. I have seen them used before. Just use a tent stake and stake 'em down so they don't blow away.

eXergears Floor Guard pad would make for a nice larger Landing Pad for your UAV.

An alternative Landing Pad using a Floor Guard Pad.

If you are new to RC UAV's and would like to know how to use more than one landing pad to hone your skills, jump on over to the many sites that show you how to fly like GizMag Drone School or this Drone School and read up on some practice exercises these landing pads will be perfect for. And once you do, you might make more than one like I did.

Till the next post,

- chase -