Pictures of injuries caused by RC Helicopters

[what-d-heli]

I think I missed the thread about the injury sustained by the person in this youtube video.

Is he a member here? How is he doing? I hope no permanent damage to his face or vital senses.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW3Dx-YPOy0[/ame]

Mods, take down the embeded YT vid if it is too graphic.

Thanks.

[rdlohr]

I don't remember seeing this one. Hope he recovered OK. Really bad!
Rick

[Blayd]

If my wife see's this.. my 500's will be for sale in the threads. She almost panics if I'm out flying for more then 2 hours....she knows I only have 8 batteries...

[corona007]

UUUghhhh I can't even bare to play the video, Too graphic in the preview already.

[rdlohr]

Originally Posted by Blayd

If my wife see's this.. my 500's will be for sale in the threads. She almost panics if I'm out flying for more then 2 hours....she knows I only have 8 batteries...

Call a friend to go with you as a spotter. He'll enjoy the show and you will be much safer.
Rick

[Jasmine2501]

Originally Posted by corona007

UUUghhhh I can't even bare to play the video, Too graphic in the preview already.

I watched it while eating a breakfast burrito... doesn't bother me. Looks like he got a deep cut down to the skull right above the eye. Could have been much worse.

[rdlohr]

Originally Posted by Jasmine2501

I watched it while eating a breakfast burrito... doesn't bother me.

[grunex125]

One thing that comes to mind as I read these posts here is the injuries to the legs and arms. While I cannot really come up with a good protective strategy for arms , one idea that may help would be to get yourself a good set of chainsaw chaps. The material is tough, and it will help to eliminate the slicing action of the blades. more than likely you will be bruised and require medical attention, but at least you won't be sliced open as badly.

just my two cents I guess.

[minnzoo]

I'm off this morning to get my chainsaw chaps before a relaxing morning flight

[Inverse]

Originally Posted by grunex125

get yourself a good set of chainsaw chaps.

You're kidding, yeah?

[Breezyjr]

WOW... this guy got so lucky.... It could have been a little lower a lost at least one eye, or eyesight..... I'm sure this hurt like heck, but in retrospect he should be lucky he can still see.....

Joe_Breezy

[must289pwr]

No where near as bad as some of the ones posted on here but it hurt all the same.

Recently acquired a used Raptor 30 and was trying to get it up and running again. Motor was almost ceased but I was able to get it freed up. Of course the next thing to do is to start it up and make sure it runs fine. Not being very experienced with Nitro especially in Helis I had the throttle a little too high (even higher than i thought I did). When it finally started, my new pet Raptor decided to swing around and bite me. It also must not have liked the starter because it grabbed it and swung it around hitting me in the hand and bruising my thumb muscle.
All in all I am lucky it wasn't worse..

[Breezyjr]

I don't know if you were already doing this, but what you should do is hold on to the head, that way if you get a hot start, you should be able to hold on, till you turn the throttle down....

I've had hot starts a time or two, but holding on to the head kept me from getting hit...

But, you also mention the starter getting thrown, so maybe you were holding on, and everything together, just went south...

Good thing it was worse. This is what scares me about electrics, that don't have a "soft start", or hasn't been setup yet.

Good luck,
Joe_Breezy

[desertstalker]

Originally Posted by Breezyjr

This is what scares me about electrics, that don't have a "soft start", or hasn't been setup yet.

That's simple, do all the setup with one motor wire removed or the motor backed off the gear. with one wire off the motor will still beep (so you can program) but will not spin up (it will just shudder).

Soft-start is enabled by default on every quality heli ESC I have seen (Kontronic, YGE, heck even HW has it on by default)

[Breezyjr]

I was more referring to the "plugging" in the batteries. But, not during setup.... Plugging in prior to a flight....

BUT....
I had an incident, it was actually during setup, where I plugged a in a battery (gaui 200) and it spooled up quickly, and I just grabbed at it, and the main gear tore up my finger pretty good. It was my first time setting up a heli.. and made many... many mistakes... Like doing it on the counter with my kids watching.... Lucky I kept the Tx nearby to turn it down, cause I was worried about it hitting one of the kids.... Since then I double and triple check EVERYTHING. I thank my luck stars I didn't get hurt (more than the cut on my finger), and lucky I grabbed it before it hit any of the kids....

It was the only dumb thing I've done with a heli, and hope I never do anything dumb again....

Joe_Breezy

[desertstalker]

Originally Posted by Breezyjr

I was more referring to the "plugging" in the batteries. But, not during setup.... Plugging in prior to a flight....

Again I have not seen a recent ESC that will arm if the throttle is not 0, so a "hot start" is very difficult to attain (im sure there are circumstances where it may happen).

[must289pwr]

Originally Posted by Breezyjr

I don't know if you were already doing this, but what you should do is hold on to the head, that way if you get a hot start, you should be able to hold on, till you turn the throttle down....

I've had hot starts a time or two, but holding on to the head kept me from getting hit...

But, you also mention the starter getting thrown, so maybe you were holding on, and everything together, just went south...

Good thing it was worse. This is what scares me about electrics, that don't have a "soft start", or hasn't been setup yet.

Good luck,
Joe_Breezy

I did have a hold of the head and the motor spun up so quick and the clutch grabbed so hard that the tail swung around and got me in the leg. It didn't help that I was doing this on concrete so there wasn't much in the way of friction like you would get with grass.

Mike

[rchelijc]

Sorry post a little long - maybe it'll help someone.

I have broken 2 sets of 700 blades on my Srimok, and I haven't crashed yet. Radix 710 V2 and Spin Blades 690. Let me explain...

Incident 1
Wanting to test first flight - everything checks out fine. I intended to do what a lot of people do: Plug everything in, Tx on Throttle Hold, then carry it to the middle of field for takeoff.
Plugged in receiver LiFe's (I run 2x1100mah 10C for redundancy) into VBar running sats and did range check. All good.
Plugged in ESC and it initialised. Throttle Hold on. All good. Placed Tx far away (10ft).
I kneel next to the heli. Turned the main blades by hand so one is abutting my leg - so that it can't pick up speed before hitting me.
I slide the canopy over and to press the grommets into the canopy arms.
Crack! I heard this but no pain. I felt pressure on my right leg and realised the motor was still trying to run the blade into my leg!! The blade had folded back on the holder and cracked right at the base. Had it broken off, the next blade would have spun round and taken me out! Let me tell you these 4525 motors develop quite a bit of torque! I fumbled underneath and after about 5 seconds found the plugs and unhooked the ESC.
No injuries - lucky. There were bystanders around, including my pregnant wife.

Incident 2
New blades on. Plugged in VBar, receiver on. Swash movement checks with range check.
The I plugged the Quanum into one 6S lipo - so it's on. I wanted to check inflight cell voltages. It uses 2.4GHz.
Tx on Throttle Hold, I put canopy on, then plugged in final plug. ESC initialised. All good.
As I stood up, motor spooled up! I pushed the heli on its side and got away as fast as I could. Slow speed strike to my hand and leg - shin bone has a dent, and bruising quickly.
Heli continued to spin, doing the chicken dance on the ground. I stood just watching it and my Tx - still on throttle hold, all switches everything all at neutral/zero - nothing wrong there. Waited for what must have felt like ages before it stopped.

Lessons learnt:
1. Don't carry a live heli to the takeoff spot. I've set up mine so that with the canopy on, I can just plug in the 12S positive to the ESC, and get the hell out of there.

2. DSM2 works but care must be taken. It's only got 2 channels, chosen at random from channels it 'sees' as free. My sequence in Incident 2 above is WRONG. Plug in the Quanum first - it transmits at 2.4GHz and it doesn't care what's around. Let it start transmitting first, then plug in your DSM2 receiver, and hopefully it'll choose 2 free channels. THEN DO A RANGE CHECK to make sure it's all ok, before plugging in your esc.

3. You all probably guessed it. I should have done a rebind of the vbar AFTER setting it up to reinitialise the failsafe throttle position. Done that now.

4. When flying, I bring my wife. She stands enclosed in metal wire fencing - it's one of those cricket / baseball practice batting areas.

[tworst]

m,

[wolfdown]

Originally Posted by rchelijc

Sorry post a little long - maybe it'll help someone.

3. You all probably guessed it. I should have done a rebind of the vbar AFTER setting it up to reinitialise the failsafe throttle position. Done that now.

After it happened once, why didn't you fix the fail-safe throttle position?