Defected tail blade almost killed me!!!!!!

[invertsick]

Hi all 600N users,

I know this threadd should be in helicoter safety but I just wanted to make sure all 600N owners read this.


last week I went with a friend to the fliying site to help him breaking in his new engine and doing some final setup to the NEW ASSEMBLED TREX 600N PRO.

After we started the engine we placed the heli about 5 or 6 meters away from us (like we always do)
I started to fire up the engine and the stick reached to mid stick.
For sure it still was on the normal mode and the engine was reachened out to as much as possible. ( new engine ), what I mean is that even on mid stick the head speed was way lower than should be because of the reach setting.

The tail was pointing to me ( I will not do that again ) and suddenly in a fraction of second I heard a very strong sound.

IT WAS THE TAIL BLADE HIT MY LEFT LEG

Only seconds later I realized what happened.

The wound was sooooo deep and the bone was visible, And the blade marked on my leg like a tatoo.

If this happened seconds later when I took off to my eye level, it would be a disaster.
I would loose an eye or even get killed.

Please be very carefule of cracks on you blades before you fly the bird, because fun can turn to disaster.

the attached pictures are 6 days after the accident happend, Coz just today the doctors removed the bondage from my leg.
By the way if you I was wearing shorts you are mistaken, The hit was above my pants (JEANS).

[Moreflying]

Man, that is crazy. I'm going to check mine right now. Sorry about getting hurt. It looks like it's healing up nicely though. Were those the standard black carbon blades that came with the kit or the white carbon tail blades?

[invertsick]

those were the original black carbons.

U'm not telling they are bad, But the one hit me was for sure defected

[crane guy]

ouch!!!!!

[G MAN]

How did it you in the back of the leg? weren't you facing the heli.

[brgsstm]

I think ALIGN need to take a look at this. I too had problems with the stock black carbons. I flew it for the first time and on touchdown the tail struck some long grass. It cant of been hard because i did not strip the tail drive gears but on inspection of the tail later that day while cleaning i noticed that the two halves of the blades were no longer glued together.

Tail blades demand as much respect as mains, they are rotating at a much higher speed. I wouldnt hover with the head at eye level so would certainly not hover with the tail pointing at me knowing the quality of those black carbons!

Tom

[TheBum]

I've been thinking of switching to the K&B tail blades and I think this gives me sufficient incentive. I had already ordered some, but until now I wasn't sure I was going to stick with them.

[wrex]

i use K&B on both my 450 and 600n. I dont trust the 3k carbon. they cracked first time i flew my 450. the k&b are nice and flexible.

[Moreflying]

How did it you in the back of the leg? weren't you facing the heli.
Look at the picture on the right again.

[SoftwareDrone]

I've been flying my heli after I struck the tail blades on the ground (stripped out my tail gears) with the same tail blades. They are a little scraped on the edges but looked fine. After reading this, I'm going to swap out the tail blades with new ones before going flying again.
:...:

[invertsick]

IT'S FRONT OF MY FOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Guyz NEVER EVER UNDERESTIMATE THESE HELIS.

They can be a killing machine any time.

On my 600N I use radix tail blades and they are gr8
The original carbons might also be good but just recheck them after every flight.

Hope this does not happen to any of you, after 1 week and its still hurting me like the first day.

serge

[highland flyer]

Something I do with the Aligns is to epoxy the bush into the blade. If not through time the bush works its way out sidways due to the tail blade grip being hollow...

cheers Brian

[WillJames]

A photo of the blade so people can see what to look for on theirs might help. Sorry to see you got hurt. I have never seen a tail blade fail like that, but back when we all flew R90's, I have seen people over tighten the grub screw that holds on the grips and the grip and blade can depart. One time I was with Clint and Steve Dixon, and we were VERY lucky that nobody got hit. Steve had just bought a used machine and Clint was test flying it for the first time and ZING the blade/grip flew right between Clint and me.

[invertsick]

I have the part of the blade which hit my leg.

The other part remained on the heli bolted on the grip.

I will post the pic 2morro as the blade is at my shop right now.

serge

[xStatiCa]

Turtle mentioned that he had some stock black CF Align blades come apart after about a year of use(he touched the tail to the ground I think during an auto). When he looked at the inside of the tail blades the epoxy never cured after a year. Probably a bad mix of epoxy or something. It was still wet and he could push the epoxy around with his finger. Scary stuff.

I try to always make sure my tail blades are not pointing at me or anyone else in the pits just as a safety thing. Sometimes it is hard to point them somewhere else depending on the field but I try to.

[bmlasater]

fwiw..

The batman plastic blades work fine on this heli, and are much less prone to be damaged by tail strikes...Carbon in general seems touchy unless you fly from a runway, and are careful..

John.

[MXRACERX43]

Any word on the Align white carbons? I picked up a set in a hurry waiting for some Radix and now I am thinking I should not use them

[bmlasater]

fwiw..

They fly great...But will not withstand lots of abuse...Neither did my Radix...:)

John.

[brgsstm]

A photo of the blade so people can see what to look for on theirs might help. Sorry to see you got hurt. I have never seen a tail blade fail like that, but back when we all flew R90's, I have seen people over tighten the grub screw that holds on the grips and the grip and blade can depart. One time I was with Clint and Steve Dixon, and we were VERY lucky that nobody got hit. Steve had just bought a used machine and Clint was test flying it for the first time and ZING the blade/grip flew right between Clint and me.


I have a picture of mine aswel, I will upload tonight.


Turtle mentioned that he had some stock black CF Align blades come apart after about a year of use(he touched the tail to the ground I think during an auto). When he looked at the inside of the tail blades the epoxy never cured after a year. Probably a bad mix of epoxy or something. It was still wet and he could push the epoxy around with his finger. Scary stuff.

I try to always make sure my tail blades are not pointing at me or anyone else in the pits just as a safety thing. Sometimes it is hard to point them somewhere else depending on the field but I try to.


Same thing here, it also seemed that the wooden spar inside the blade was dislodged and I only touched some long grass with the tail.

Tom

[invertsick]

Some friends brought the blade for me from the flyin site where the accident happened.

2moro I will upload the pic of the defected blade.

BTW I can see some guyz had some bad blades just because they touched the long grass.

In my case I touched no where!!!!!!! It was the first ever flight of the heli.

[mclaren]

brgsstm (http://www.helifreak.com/member.php?u=37646)

I can second Brgsstm's story...I was hovering in the back yard and after my second lift off in 1 1/2" dead grass something sounded funny so I landed and took the 600 inside. When I was cleaning it and folding the tail blades notice that each side of one blade separated. I immediately had a flash of the 600 spinning uncontrollably in my back yard and went right to the LHS for some of the Align 3Ks.

[invertmast]

Why is every part that fails a defective part? How do you know it wasn't damaged during transportation or handling of the part? (The non cured epoxy event not being included in this). Every time i see a post like that, the FIRST thing that goes thru my mind is "wonder what happened to it before the flight?" 70-90% of the damage on all aircraft is from handling issues. And i'm not talking about just RC ones, i'm talking about aircraft in general. Dont cry Wolf before you ask yourself, could i have possibly caused this?
I've got over 300 flights on the stock black carbons, white align 3k's, on over 4 different heli's and as long as they are handled with care and not mistreated, i have never had an issue. And just because the part is new, dont assume it to be good, inspect the part before you put it on, b/c i've seen instances of parts being damaged, manufactured incorrectly or just plain wrong before.

Sorry to see the OP got injured. It always sucks, but now you have learned and hopefulyl others will have learned from this as well. dont have the tail rotor pointed at you, but have the heli off to one side of you.

[xStatiCa]

Well what do you know... I autod my heli at lunch today and made a very soft landing into some tall grass ( sparse 10 inches high... no damage to heli). After that I though of this thread and checked the tail blades... sure enough they are splitting(coming apart at the seam at the end and maybe 10mm back from the end. It might have been that way for awhile though because I haven't looked at them that close before. It was hard to tell they were split because of the dark black color. I usually just glance over them to make sure there are no nicks in them. They are the stock black CF blades btw with about 100 flights on them and a few (3) grass touches in the past. I stopped flying immediately and ordered some 92mm Radix tail blades.

Everyone please check your tail blades often even if you think you already have. I don't know if it was my insane pyro rate when I first got the heli that did it, they came that way, or if the few times I have hit the grass have caused the problem so I am not blaming Align for it. I do hope that Radix are built stronger though.

[invertsick]

FINALLY THE FAMOUS BLADE !!!!!!!!!
IT WAS ON MY TABLE FOR MANY DAYS BUT JUST TODAY MANAGED TO UPLAOD.

HAVE SAFE FLYING ALL

SERGE

[invertmast]

looks like a mis-handled blade to me. like it got a side force and fractured the fabric/resin cloth... but who knows...