Safety Comes First - 2010/10

Dave Gee | Safety Comes First [email protected]
A workshop propeller cruelty story
Emily McPeek is a talented art student at
the University of Southern California,
who not only draws well, but can also fly
indoor RC.
The other pictures that Jim Rose sent
were too graphic to share. Under those
bandages are ugly signs of a propeller
strike that occurred at the workbench.
The largest catapult-launched FF seaplane glider in the world is at Universal Studios
Hollywood. Flights are short but spectacular.
Also included in this column:
• Whatever happened to
rounded propeller nuts?
• Two accidents in one with
unsecured cargo
• Don’t launch into the crowd
without explosives
I’VE NEVER actually met Jim Rose,
although we’ve been friends for many years.
Thanks to the Internet, many of us have
flying buddies with whom we’ve never
flown.
Jim e-mailed me recently with bad news.
Despite considerable experience with model
airplanes, he earned a place in this column
with a painful and messy propeller accident.
He wrote:
“I had just finished all the necessary
modifications to accommodate the E-flite
Power 90 motor in a Hangar 9 Pulse 60. It
needed some final adjustments on the
control surfaces before I took it to the flying
field, and I had been using a standard flight
pack to run the radio while tinkering. That
allows me to use all the functions without
ever having the motor start. Unfortunately I
didn’t think ahead, so when I installed the
regular Li-Poly battery in its place, the
transmitter was on and the controls came to
life.
“I was seated with the plane at a handy
height in its work stand. When I accidentally
advanced the throttle, that 90 woke up and
yelled for my wife to come drive me to the
emergency room.”
Jim spent four hours at the doctor’s office
and got 14 stitches. He said he was typing
with his one undamaged digit.
The photo you see is only one of a series,
taken during the medical phase of this
adventure. They get gory and awful! Who
the whole stand came after me. The APC 16
x 8E prop sliced into my hand before I could
get out of the way.
“At that point, blood was flying all over
the shop and I was cussing at myself for
being so dumb. I have been using gas
engines in model planes since 1946 and have
never ever had any damage to my hands. A
quick look confirmed that I was seriously
injured.
“I managed to get everything shut down
in the shop, even unplugging the Li-Poly in
the plane and turned off the
transmitter. Calmly walked
downstairs into the house,
washed it all up, and
October 2010 97
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takes photos at times like this?
I doubt that I would have had Jim’s
presence of mind to remain calm during such
a chaotic and painful event. Blood and
screaming go together like … oh, never
mind.
Jim Rose’s courage and poise don’t end
there, because he followed up by sending the
whole story to me in hopes that some other
reader would avoid a similar mess. It is
selfless of him to accept dubious fame in this
column, just to help his fellow hobbyists.
If you have a story that might save
someone from disaster, please send it to me
via e-mail or the US Postal Service. You can
choose anonymity or notoriety.
Propeller strikes are much too common
in our hobby, and we have no excuse for
getting hurt that way. Everyone knows not to
put hands into propellers, right? The cartoon
you see was drawn by Emily McPeek, a
talented young art student who offered to
illustrate the situation in her own style, and
her style is good!
Emily is that rarest of rare people: a
worse pilot than I am—at least until I put her
on my Vapor’s transmitter. She is a quick
learner and soon became as good with RC
sticks as she is with her drawing pencils.
Jim Newman asked an interesting question.
He was leafing through old model
magazines and saw the phrase “a scale prop
fitted for display, hence the reason for no
AMA safety nut.”
Jim skipped the obvious joke about how I
am the current AMA Safety Nut and wanted
to know what happened to all the hoopla
about using rounded propeller nuts. He said,
“I remember the fuss that resulted from a
requirement for a minimum radius for the
‘sharp end’ of all models. Now rounded prop
nuts are fairly rare, and I see spear-like noses
on some RC sailplanes that likely would
penetrate the armor of an Abrams tank.”
This was all before my time, but my best
guess is that eventually it was learned that
propeller nuts were not as great a cause of
injuries as the propeller itself, and the impact
of a rounded-nut model was not much
different from the old type. The old
propeller-nut requirement still lives on in
some AMA competition categories.
It is a good idea to use a rounded nut on
any high-powered model, in case there is
some incident where it could make a
difference. If I were going to be hit by a
model (shudder!), I’d at least like it to have
as blunt a nose as possible.
Our aircraft don’t go fast enough for such
extreme streamlining to make an
aerodynamic difference. It is style, and styles
can change.
Johnny Wickham e-mailed about a not-sostylish
moment he had when a drunk driver
hit his vehicle and caused an awful crash.
Johnny’s Jeep flipped over several times
before coming to rest. His message had to do
with securing our cargo when traveling.
He wrote that tools and equipment from
his Jeep were scattered for hundreds of
yards, with a pair of pliers imbedded in a
pole. It was not only because of the speed of
the vehicles at impact; the spinning motion
of the flipping vehicle turned even small
items into flying hazards.
Johnny urges us to consider what could
happen in such a crash and to make sure that
things are properly secured. Getting hit by a
drunk driver is bad enough without being
pummeled by our own stuff during the
accident. Keep toolboxes and heavy cargo
buckled down, and avoid leaving loose items
in the passenger area when possible.
I’m considered something of a “loose item”
at AMA Safety Committee meetings. This
group of hardworking people consults and
advises the AMA Executive Council on
matters related to safe operation of our
flying machines.
Much of this work is done via e-mail, so
that the distance between members’ homes
is not a factor. The committee represents
literally hundreds of years of modeling
experience, despite my own disruptive
influence.
Committee Chairman Jim Rice tries to
differentiate between issues that affect
thousands of AMA members and something
that is one person’s pet peeve. This results in
a responsive system in which decisions can
be made quickly when needed.
An e-mail went around the group before
the AMA Nats. The issue had to do with
electric-powered CL models that have timer
systems installed. They shut off the motors
long enough for the pilot to get to the center
of the circle and pick up the handles.
This is a clever idea and is great for most
flying, but a busy event such as the Nats
might not be the best place to have an
unattended model sitting with a timer ticking
while the pilot walked away from it. Maybe
there wouldn’t be a problem, but there was a
chance that somehow an airplane could start
and begin its flight without a pilot on the
handle.
After consulting some experienced
people, it was decided that, at least at the
Nats, a helper should be required to hold the
airplane until the pilot was ready to fly. Yes,
it was a bit of overkill, but consider the risk
if the flier were delayed or tripped or
distracted, and a model zoomed away into
the pits.
I felt good about “erring on the side of
caution” in this instance, while at the same
time researching one of those great timers for
my own use.
The thought of a model airplane heading for
a crowd came to mind a few days later when
I was at Universal Studios Hollywood, a
famous and popular tourist attraction. In
addition to a back lot tour and amusement
park rides, there is an amazing live show
based on the movie Waterworld. If you tend
to catch fire, this is the place to hang out
because they keep the audience wetted down.
At one point in the show, a nearly lifesize
aircraft explodes through a wall of
scenery and crash lands a few feet from the
screaming crowd. It’s spectacular, and sadly
similar to the way most of my RC flights
end.
I got a close look at the airplane after the
show. It is a semiscale OV-10 Bronco on
sturdy floats, with fake wing guns added. It
has flashing lights and pyrotechnics too, as if
anyone could fail to notice an airplane being
flung through fire and smoke and splashing
into the water.
It is launched at the bleachers, and there
are no tethers or guidance, but the setup is
carefully designed to protect both people and
the expensive model. The world’s largest FF
catapult-glider seaplane flies six times a day
at the show.
Snapping the picture involved some
sacrifice on my part because a split second
after the photo was taken I was deluged by
the splashdown wave. My ever-supportive
wife, Sweet Diedra, said that they probably
would have to cancel the next show because
my clothes had absorbed most of the water
from the lake.
If you visit or live near Los Angeles, I
highly recommend a trip to Universal
Studios. Take a towel. MA