Heli Caused Injury Poll

[kachur779]

I have been hit with a mcpx in the house , nothing major but I have had lots of close calls with bigger helis .Ibe had a 600esp slam into the ground 15 feet in front of me then the lipo burst into flames , never found the cause of that .I went to rake off in my logo 600 and noticed I had no elevator that could have been a bad situation, and countless times of tail blow outs flying towards me .Helis are dangerous even if you think ever thing seems to be working all it takes is one thing to fail and that's it

[bublik1]

1st cut in the leg when completely newb to CP with micro v922.
second cut under the chin, lucky no artery cut lol. v922.(damn rtf Tx)
and yesterday in night flight lost control due to invisible orientatrion and cut my elbow. with v922

[Hexapod32]

Mcpx and 130X both hit me in the arm and drew blood. Thankfully, not at the same time
And got a drop of nitro fuel splashed into my eye while de-fueling a TRex 600. Fuel hose popped off and flipped back right while I was up close to it.

[Tattoonick]

i flew my mcpxbl into my face in my living room today, put a 2" cut across my cheek. It was kinda deep but i rinsed it out and superglued it shut immediately so I don't think ill have any issues with it. Sure gives me some new respect for that BL!

[hrefab]

I had a 700 in my office and was "checking" the throttle. Blades off of course...Well the main blades actually... Tail blades spooled up and sucked the payroll off the desk and shredded 50's, 20's and 10's like so much confetti. Lost about $300 in unrecoverable bills, the rest was returned to the bank for an embarrassing exchange.

Government should have 700's stationed at the shredding facility. Best job I ever saw!

[hrefab]

Originally Posted by kodack10

Maiden flight of my 130x I had just taken off and was checking for stable hover at 20feet up when a large june bug happened to fly too close to the rotor and got sucked into the downash. It was like fruit ninja. Multiple pieces fell out of the sky and the heli barely twitched.

Same heli 2 days later had bug splat on the tail fin, so both rotors have tasted blood. Or whatever runs in an insects body.

Man! My 550 and 500 look like they flew in the Zombie Apocalypse! The rotors suck up all the mosquitos and bugs in the field and blast them to atoms. The leading edges of the blades look pretty gruesome when I'm done. (Happy to execute any and all biting insects! Helis are a public service

[kevinww]

15 stitches in 2 slices to the bone between knuckle and first joint of little finger from tail of Trex 600N.

Cause was an oversight on my part. I'd switched throttle servos from a spektrum servo to futaba servo, remembered to reverse direction in TX. Started up for a quick test without main blades all seemed good til i did a quick throttle blip and motor started running flat out.

Nothing i did would shut it down. So ran around heli to pull fuel line and in my haste clipped tail with finger.

The cause was I'd forgotten to teach the GV1 govenor the high and low again which was now reversed so as I blipped the throttle Governor kicked in and motor over sped, governor tried to shut it down by moving throttle the wrong way and open it instead.

[hrefab]

My most recent screw up was after building my Compass Atom 500. Was having problems with my CGY750 so put it on the bench to change some settings. Had throttle hold on (or so I thought) and nicked the throttle stick. Spun around whacking my arm and two quick shots to the belly. Let me tell you, three rotations and it was as if those blades were spinning at 10,000 rpm. Big Helis, Big Power (and some folks think a 500 is a 'small' heli).
The two belly hits were more 'grazing blows' rather than an actual cut (the arm was stitch worthy, but used monsell's solution and some HELLO KITTY bandaids to close it all up. Thing is, a week later my entire stomach from the ribcage to my groin was black and blue. RESPECT KIDS!

[ToddMcF2002]

I've been cut by micros but more memorable were a few scares back when I was more of a noob.

I didn't know what I was doing and had the blades on my 450 on the work table. You know where this is going.... it spooled up on me when I was tuning the FBL. Serious pucker moment and nothing funny about that. It was very scary having it spool indoors inches from my face. Thank god for soft start but even then it was spooling pretty fast by the time I realized I had no choice but to reach in to get at the battery. After that event I consistently removed the mains but of course that's not good enough. On a different day I had the tail fire up on me. Hadn't considered that and of course with no mains on it the frame whipped around very fast and took a swipe at my face. Now FINALLY I've learned to disconnect an ESC lead.

Moral of the story is noobs (me at the time) have NO FREAKING CLUE how dangerous these things are. Finally figured it out.

Much funnier story but still pretty scary - when I turned off my transmitter with my 150 DFC battery plugged in. I had just bought it and there was no fail safe set. As I was flicking the button I knew I made a mistake. In my living room. You can just imagine... Bounced off the ceiling, came right at me and ended up under my work table. I had to use pillows to get at it while it chicken danced. *sigh*

[hrefab]

What most people DON'T realize is that these helis are incredibly fast. They can move from one side of the bench to your face or body in the blink of an eye. When you're outside, they can fly at you so quickly that if you aren't prepared, really bad things can happen. We also take stupid risks when we fly thinking that all will stay together. Fly towards yourself and then do a pitch pump? Really bad idea, broken links have probably put more helis flying at their pilots than anything else.

PAY ATTENTION and do it right the first time.
Stay Safe everyone!

[HunkaJunk]

I put a small cut/bruise from a micro, it was actually a 180 CFX spinning at 4400+ RPM so I was very lucky. I have had a couple trips to the ER to buy stiches over the years, once on a very small electric plane.

[Kap'n Krunch]

yep was at a fun fly in 2013 and out spotting for a friend the next thing i know he's inverted and the heli is coming down rt over our heads im like hey ! hey ! hey ! and at that moment I turned and ran as i felt his g 500 breathing on my neck and just graze my back as it went in under power into the ground and safety net

I received a clean bill of health with nothing more than a scratch on the upper portion of my back

[MariaFan]

The Spawn has nailed me 4 times.
Once on my left jaw. (beards are good)
Twice on the right forearm. Blood both times.
Once on the knuckles when I first put the stretched mCPX blades on her. Lots of blood.
(The bigger blades hurt more and make deeper cuts.)

[deebee]

First CP heli I got was 2 MCPX one with a bl mod spooled the Bl modded one up tested pitch and shut the throttle down (ah la 120sr w/X box style controller). Of course I was in iu lost my grip and got a finger full of rotor blades, couple little cuts and bruises.
Another time while flying MSRX in the house. I was trying to MM Mod the swash and set mixes in the radio to get consistent piros, wife walked in about the time I changed to testing nose left piros. Heli headed toward her, hit TH right before the main blades caught the top of her lip. Lmao no injuries but one highly peeved wife. She swore I did it on purpose. I told her the heli was just getting even for all the smack she had talked, (not the good kind).
Since then I quit flying the MCPX's in the house, one of those would have cut her lip.

[str8wing]

Inadvertently touched a hot muffler on my glow machines a time or two. Nothing serious. Had a couple close calls with the big ones though. I was just (meaning barely) able to get out of the way. The times I've hurt myself were wrenching. I've stuck a small cross point/Phillips screwdriver in the palm of my left hand a couple of times (can you guess I'm right handed?). A little blood and a bruise. Lots of cuss words.

[learnedthehardway]

Walkera dragonfly 36 450 with align brushless upgrade and lipo, tx on a neckstrap. Forgot to flip TH, leaned forward to pick up heli and my body maxed the throttle as i leaned. Shot up at my face but shielded it just in time with my upper arm. Exploded the main blades on myself from my shoulder almost to my elbow, got welts that raised up an inch and a half that turned into nasty bruises later.
Bonehead move of my heli career and another lesson learned the hard way, at least those lessons are never forgotten and thank God it wasn't my face. Hurt like a #$%&%$ for a week. Couple nano hits once in the back of the head but not a scratch or lick of pain.

Trying to go from an airhog to that walkera i bought of cl not even knowing about coax, fp or cp and that painful lesson on safety is why i chose the name i have on here. If I didn't find this site and learn the proper steps of rc heli flight, i would have gave up long ago.

[slamdance]

A few safety tips learned from my trex 450(300+ flights) and trex 500(6000+ flights).
1.) Whether using futaba/Spek/Jr...etc. radio. Fully understand what failsafe will do.
2.) I know it's UGLY, but route your battery wire "through the canopy". So, you have access to the wire without removing the canopy. EVERYBODY seems to want to hide the connection under the canopy. Guess what, the time between connecting, canopy on, talking, walking, setting it down is perfect for accidents. My heli is never "live" until I put it down on the ground ready to go. (Too short? Use an adapter.)
3.) I have two throttle hold setting on both left and right side toggle. My flight mode(norm, idle 1, idle 2) is programmed to only work at "norm" click position. Both idle 1 and idle 2 is set for 0-0-0-0-0% throttle curve? Why, I only need one flight mode(100-100-100-100-100% throttle and 0-25-50-75-100% pitch). Yup, I take off at center stick. My main point is I got 2 throttle holds for safety. How many people have accidently released throttle hold toggle on the right side of the tx? Also, for emergency auto I can hit either switch.

[cgibson20]

Originally Posted by Khal

I guess I have to say yes, because my mCP X did give me pretty good bruise on my knuckle, once.

But, touch wood, I remain otherwise unscathed.

"Touch wood," that's an interesting twist that I've never heard

I'm actually more surprise with the number of people that have NEVER been injured. That number would also include myself, but of course now that I've said that, I'll be next

I don't like to fly extremely close to myself or others, even when in doors.....but I've never worked on a large scale either, as some of you have spooled up a large scale in your shop by accident and then gotten hurt. So it'll probably happen to me as well when I finally outgrow the smaller birds.

[Crowbar]

Just take the blades off when doing anything with the ESC, especially programming and testing endoints, messing with the gov, trying autorotation bailout, etc.

And have more than one throttle hold switch... that thing can easily get caught in something, Tx falls down, Tx strap gets into it, etc. and off the heli goes. My flight mode one has a 0-5-5-5-5 throttle curve so it just barely keeps the rotor going when the stick is not fully down which should work nice for auto-rotation and even if I messed up on the bench, I'd only get a light smack and learn from it.

I witnessed a guy who went from a 600 to a 700 and went to touch the rotor brake after maiden flight. The slowly moving blade hit his shin... shin bone broken. Small people beware.

[seanh]

bringing a good thread back to the top...

The only thing I've had is minor bruising/cuts from a 450. It was when I was first starting and didn't pay attention to what I was doing...fast spool up when plugging in the battery.