Quote Originally Posted by OakLeaf View Post
Yep, safety is an issue. They're not as easy to control as someone who's never flown anything might think. .
This. My son wanted one for Christmas. I bought a not cheap, but not expensive one ($200). He was upset because he wanted the large nice versions (upwards of $1000) that could carry a camera, etc. He crashed it in our front yard on Christmas day. He had to order parts, fixed it, and crashed it again. He's had tons of remote control "stuff" including some helicopters (but not a quad copter), and he found it very difficult.

Luckily the small ones can't go very far (besides not wanting to waste money on something that I knew he very likely would crash until he learned more, I didn't want one that we'd have to register nor did I want one that would be capable of flying very far or very high.