Close Call!

[romulus]

First of all, I want to thank you all the great information on this forum. As a newbie, I am now able to hover tail-in in an area of about 4 x 4 feet while my driveway is 15 x 15 feet with my E-flite Blade CP+ ( with or without wind).
Yesterday, I was practicing my hover in my driveway and suddenly I heard a loud bang in my garage door. When that happened, my heli started to shake like crazy so I landed. Luckily I was about 2 feet above the ground. I powered down and checked my heli. I couldn’t find anything that was missing, so I started to spool up but it started to shake again. :confused:
So, I checked my garage door to see if I kicked a rock or something, but it did not made any sense since the heli was in the air.
Upon checking, I was surprised to find a steel rod of about 2 1/2 inch long stuck on the garage door! :shock: Oh my…. It was just a few feet away where I was standing! :shock:
I looked closely at my main wood blades and I found a hole poked through the tape I put to add a bit of strength on the tips since there are times that I ended up scraping the blades. Overall the blades are in good shape but it got a bit softer with all the banging I had from time to time. I am guessing that E-flite adds these rods to balance the blades since I found a rod in the other blade as well.
So, the moral of the story is change your blades if becomes too damaged to fly! Wear your safety glasses just in case. :thumbup:

[xeispen]

Holy S*** man. That's hella scary. Your heli shooting projectiles at you:bawl

[Skarn]

Yeah bro, every blade I've ever seen has the lead weights in them. Never heard of them coming out like that though!

Damn, that was a close call!

Skarn

[romulus]

Yep, it was scary when I found out what happened. I changed a new set of blades to finish up my packs and this time I was wearing my safety glasses..

[forjer]

Hope that never happens with the woodies on my Raptor...those rods are pretty good sized and the tip speed on them is pretty fast.

[Dennisu]

Skarn and forjer

He said he damaged the blades and still flew with them.

I looked closely at my main wood blades and I found a hole poked through the tape I put to add a bit of strength on the tips since there are times that I ended up scraping the blades. Overall the blades are in good shape but it got a bit softer with all the banging I had from time to time.

[WillJames]

People have carried blade weights in their bodies for years. There is one very well known on this site who had surprised his doctor for sure.

[romulus]

I would doubt that good condition blades would do that, otherwise the manufacturer of the blades has not business in making them. Again, is my own misjudgment that I could still use these blades. I knew that bigger helis has weights added in the blades but I have never thought that it would be the same for a micro heli like my BCP+. With this experience, I will be able to judge better the blade conditions whether or not to use them. I hope that this will clear any confusion and hopefully other people can learn from this post.:thumbup:

[Skarn]

Skarn and forjer

He said he damaged the blades and still flew with them.

Yes, I saw and understood that.

Skarn

[forjer]

Skarn and forjer

He said he damaged the blades and still flew with them.
Guess I read it too fast, that's good stuff. Still hope I never see that though.

[tz250w]

Thanks for posting that. There's a reason the manufacturers say not to fly with damaged blades. Glad you weren't hurt!

[Paco]

I once was hit by this wire thing out of the blade. I was checking the trakking on a HoneyBee CP2 by holding it in my hand and sooling it up (VERY STUPID, I KNOW). On top of that the blade tips were a bit scraped from rubbing the ground on a couple of BAD landings....But I honestly had NO IDEA the blades had those wires in them, I swear!
That wire came out and hit me right in my eyelid (thank goodnesssss) and it got all swollen and everything. That was 2 years ago and I've lost the pictures I took otherwise I'd post them here to help others not to make the same mistake....

My advice:
Wear safety gogles anytime you are close to your heli or have to fly it a eye level to check trakking!!
If a Honey Bee did that to me I don't even want to think what my Trex would do ..............