Hey Jack, we should go for coffee if you're in the southern Ontario area!
Yes it is not just weight, but potential energy. Maybe I should apply for a grant to do testing and see the results from dropping a 1.8kg drone from 300 feet. As I have stated in my many letters to TC, that would be scientific data from which to base a regulation. Carbon fiber blades in my opinion only make a difference if they are spinning on impact, but again some "Myth Buster" data would sure help give an answer.
I think the difference between "complaint" and DJI is in the manufacturers willingness and assistance to provide answers through testing to ideas and specifics similar to the issues in this thread.
I have tested the DJI flight restriction in a limited way. I set up my drone in a yellow zone at the edge of a restricted (red) zone, and was able to get the drone motors started. (No props were installed on the drone, and photo verification was used) I then took the drone inside the restricted zone and confirm the motors would not start. My next step is to contact the ATC and discuss how I can test this out in real world but safety first method. Tether the drone by a 50 foot rope and fly inside the restricted zone to see if I can maintain the ability to prevent the drone from landing without control, or move it before it lands, should a legally planned flight pass by the edge of a restricted zone. I have been told that if you take off from outside the yellow zone, and then enter the yellow zone, you will not be able to stop it from landing unless you get out of the yellow zone as fast as possible. The solution I've been told is you must launch from within the yellow zone and then you will be ok.
To my mind, the above is an unsafe flying situation and is a pilot is unaware of this supposed "safety" measure, the pilot could find his drone auto landing in a tree or on a busy roadway. This is a manufacturers way of trying to appease local governments that their product is safe, when in fact it is dangerously unsafe and removes a pilots ability to control their aircraft.
If an operator has the ability to know and document this type of situation, then it is my opinion that they should be able to fly their aircraft, regardless of TC "approved" list.
In short, in my opinion it is a combination of politics and regulation that dictates the "approved" drone list, and has not a lot to do with actual "safety", just the law has little to do with what is right, only what someone can prove withing the regulations. Many a woman has been killed by a boyfriend or husband, and the police say; "There is nothing we can do until they actually try to kill you." The approved drone list is an inverse example of this concept, and in my opinion no one should feel particularly safe or protected.
To point: An amateur drone operator can fly 5.5km from an airport, but a commercial operator must be 9km from an airport, currently the law in Canada. A commercial operator can under a SFOC fly closer than that, but then does an amateur operator know or care about airspace? Does an amateur know when a small local airport is class D or class E airspace, or even know what the difference is in all this stuff? Versus the risk of a MTTF of a UAV motor or Vne?
I understand the need for safety, and that the aviation world is (or has been) vigilant in safety, or wants to be seen in that light. I can recall two incidents involving Canadian aircraft in San Francisco. The real danger is in pilot operation more that aircraft compliance. TC is making people pay a lot of money for an air vehicle when the real danger may be in the pilot operating that vehicle.
Show me the evidence!
