Safety Comes First
MANNERS and safety: In my opinion, polite flying is directly related to safe flying. This opinion was reinforced by an incident described in a recent letter from a Texas modeler, whose name and club I'm withholding to ensure I don't create bad feelings within the club. The members of this club are required to fly in accordance with the AMA Safety Code and to observe certain flying field rules. Some important rules require that pilots announce their intentions to other fliers, such as calling out, "Taking off," "Landing," and "Dead-stick" prior to executing these functions. If it is necessary for a flier to enter onto or cross the runway, this also must be announced and acknowledged by the other pilots. The letter writer stated that once in a while infractions do occur, and penalties may be assessed which could result in removal from the club. A particular incident was then described which I will relate in the letter writer's own words:
Safety Comes First
THE OTHER SIDE of the coin: If I write something in this column which results in my receiving letters which are all opposed to what I have said, then I must be doing something wrong. However, as a result of the discussion on transmitter power switches being inadvertently turned off which appeared in the April safety column, letters appear to be about equally divided on whether to blame the stupidity of such incidents on the pilot or on the person who designed the transmitter. Since I took the position that I felt it was not stupidity on the part of the pilot that caused such incidents, following is the other side of the coin expressed extremely well in a letter from Jefferson City, MO modeler William Stodgell:
Safety Comes First
Accidentally switching off RC transmitters - maybe not so stupid after all. Children at the flying field: Pro and con. Model fuel explosion. STUPID COLUMN! An overwhelming number of letters I've received from readers in which the writer saw fit to comment on the content of this column have been ~ complimentary. However, once in a while I seem to rub someone the wrong way, and then a letter with derogatory comments arrives in my mailbox. Such a letter arrived last month in response to the January Safety column, which, among other topics, discussed transmitter power switches being inadvertently turned off during flight. The letter from Morresville, PA modeler Joe McCamley had the following comments:
Safety Comes First
Some good new safety tips for Electric fliers. Take a first aid kit to the field. Broken crankshafts. "Think before you act!" Electric follow-up: The photo of Bob Kopski's lacerated hand in the July 1990 Safety column resulted in two letters with safety tips for Electric fliers. Tehachapi, CA modeler Ron Samuels had the following to say: "I was horrified to see Bob Kopski's unpleasant hand injury due to the propeller of an electric-powered model. I have been experimenting with electric-powered models for some 15 years and learned quite early on after some workbench flyaways to always leave the propeller OFF until I was at the flying field. I found I could do almost all of the electrical bench testing without a prop. Electronic throttles don't really care if you have a prop in place or not. "Neither do the motors or batteries. "To recount a case in point. Yesterday, I was bench charging my Miss Philadelphia IV Old-Timer, which has an ancient 05 belt-drive motor, seven 800-mAh cells, and a servo-operated on/off microswitch. As usual, I had no prop on the drive shaft.
Safety Comes First
FUEL PUMP fire: Some time ago I asked for comments on the potential hazard of using an electric fuel pump to transfer gasoline from a can to your model. Several people responded and described what they considered to be a safe way to do this. At that time I had received no letters which cited a specific incident in which a fire or explosion had resulted. A couple of weeks ago I received a telephone call from AMA Executive Director Vince Mankowski stating that there had recently been an incident in Florida involving a fire resulting from the use of an electric pump with gasoline. Vince did not have any details of the incident but asked me to issue a word of caution in this column about such a practice.
