A Serious Incident
My friend, Richard Cox, knows more about electronics than I ever will, but that’s not why he emailed me. Richard wanted to report an incident at a local club, from which we can all learn. No names or locations on this one—just the facts.
“A pilot was sharing his electric plane with another person and the model was armed and ready to fly. The throttle was somehow bumped while the pilot’s hand was in the rotational area of the propeller. The prop sliced into his wrist, creating severe bleeding.
“Fortunately, there were others at the field to provide medical aid. The wound was so serious that a tourniquet had to be applied to control blood loss until emergency treatment could be rendered at the hospital.
“This was considered a major incident. Thanks to prompt and skillful first-aid treatment, the pilot made it through emergency surgery and was released to go home later that day.”
This was a classic propeller-strike mishap. A club report on the incident had several suggestions, and of course, the main one was to keep your mitts out of the propeller disc, even when it isn’t turning.
Our newfangled electric power systems can go from off to full bore in a millisecond, and they don’t care who or what is in the way.
The report also mentioned the importance of programming the transmitter with a throttle-cut switch that can be activated when the airplane is not ready to fly on the taxiway or runway. Otherwise, the battery should be disconnected when not flying.
The club reinforced that pilots should not fly alone. With no one to render aid, the flier in this story might not have survived.
Flying alone is a bad idea, and is not as much fun as having your pals around to see you goof your landing.
