More prop injuries

[wayne drinkwater]

Last week a good mate at our club had the misfortune to have lost one finger , and two broken fingers and numerous lacerations to his hand!

Another victim of a "prop bite" but he was doing every thing by the book his model was restrained well the model thankfully was at idle but it has a 50cc twin , he had just adjusted the mixture , and was kneelingnext to the model ,when he went to get up he lost his balance and you guessed it put his hand out to steady himself!!!!!!

Any way he is out of hospital being a bus driver he is out of work for the next 6-8 weeks.

This led to a discussion about electric models being safer as you only start them up when basically on th flightline, and no one at our club has had any accidents with electric powered models ,apart from one reversing the throttle channel on the transmitter and having his model leap off the bench and into the garage wall!!

So are there any less prop injuries with electric models ?

[ken anderson.]

wayne-i've seen a few electric model injuries(inc me)......the thing about the electrics is they dont stop going...i've also seen an injury to someones leg off an electric motor..when he had his TX resting against the leading edge of the model-the TX fell forward...moving the throttle stick to full! .... the prop hitting the lad's inner leg...his jeans saved him(just) a few more inches and it would have hit his 'hows your father's' ....

ken anderson ne..1 ... near miss dept..

[John Privett]

I think any improvement by not having engines idling in the pits is likely to be cancelled out by accidents in the workshop (like the one Wayne mentioned hitting the garage wall) or at other times when an electric motor bursts into life unexpectedly - which of course i/c engines just don't do. (Let's face it, there are times when we have enough difficulty getting an i/c engine to start when we want it to!)

So absent-mindedly opening the throttle on your 50cc i/c powered model when it's sitting on the workbench isn't going to do anything. But do that with an electric equivalent that you've installed a battery in to set it up and.... (Though obviously everbody always removes the prop and/or disconnects the motor in such circumstances, don't they? )

Personally, no, I don't think I have seen any injuries yet caused by electric models, but as electrics - and particularly bigger electrics - become even more common, it's only a matter of time.