Did you get a drone for Christmas? Here are a pro's tips on how not to lose it

This year Santa brought 5-year-old Pierce Chapieski a drone—and about 10 minutes after unwrapping it, the drone was gone. 

"My brother wanted to fly it. He flew it up higher and higher," Pierce told CBC Windsor. "My mom said to me, 'Get it lower, but he kept on getting it higher and then we lost it." 

Pierce's mother Melissa posted about the missing drone on Facebook, hoping someone in the neighbourhood would spot it. 

"There was a kind of an outpouring of support from people in the community, checking their yards and seeing if they could find it," she said, adding that she hopes it will turn up in the next few days. 

Ken Amlin, a licensed drone pilot, says if a drone doesn't have a GPS tracker in it, you need to rely "on the kindness of strangers if it falls somewhere, and it's still flyable and not broken."

He says drones can be difficult to fly. Even with a decade of experience, he's still had crashes. For novice flyers, figuring out the controls can be confusing. 

 "If the drone turns around in the air, what was going right is now going left, and if [the pilot] panics getting close to a tree, often by just sheer reaction, they'll fly directly into the tree."

Some drones require license to use

In Canada, a drone needs to be under 250 grams in order to fly it without a license. You must be 14-years-old to get a basic license and 16-years-old to get an advanced license. 

"It's like driving a car," Amlin said. "You need to be fully licensed to do that. You have to register with Transport Canada."

There are also rules around where you can fly — like staying away from other aircraft and bystanders. 

Amlin said new flyers should always have the drone in their line of sight, even if they can see through the camera in the drone, and should try it out in an open area with no wires or trees. 

With a smaller drone, more often used by kids, Amlin says there's less of a risk of causing a serious injury.

"They weigh almost nothing, but you still want to be careful when you're flying them," he said. "You don't want to fly them into your sister's hair or into your pet."