RC Airplane Crash – Click here for more blooper videos
Unlike the guy in this video standing at the end of a runway, having some common sense and a bit of respect will protect you from most injuries involving radio controlled aircraft. However, as you know, things still happen! Being a radio control pilot and also having spent many years as a firefighter/paramedic, I felt it would be a good idea to make some comments on safety involving radio control aircraft.
In fact, one of my earliest memories in the sport was when I was a kid and had just graduated from my control line Cox .049 PT-19 Flight Trainer and was ready to fly something larger. That’s when my dad rummaged around in the attic of our house and pulled out a very large (to me) solid balsa wood aircraft with a McCoy .35 mounted to the front of it. I had never seen such a large model airplane motor before! I know he must have been excited to impress me with this memory of his past. He blew some compressed air through the engine and fuel tank, removed the old broken wooden propeller, and placed a brand new master airscrew 10-6 nylon prop in its place.
Admittedly, my father was not well known for his excellent safety practices! He had me, 10 years old and all of 75 pounds, in charge of restraining the behemoth aircraft while he attempted to start it. To his credit, he did instruct me on the proper way to hold it (by the leading edge of the wing) and told me to “HOLD ON”. I really didn’t expect it to come to life after all those years sitting in our dusty attic, but I did as instructed. After filling up the fuel tank, adjusting the needle valve, and then squirting some fuel into the exhaust port (no muffler) of the engine, my pop placed the battery clip on the glow plug and prepared to start it. I remember thinking “that looks dangerous” when I watched my dad place his fingers against that big propeller as he prepared to flip it. Remember, I had only been exposed to a .049 up until this point, so a 10″ propeller was pretty big! By the way, my dad was not a “chicken”, so hand proping was the only alternative to him.
What happened next is the memory that is ingrained in my head so well all these years later. He flipped the prop once. Twice. On the third try that McCoy .35 kicked, sputtered, and coughed. Then with a quick adjustment of the needle valve it ROARED to life! I defiantly was not prepared for the power and noise that this engine created, but I did manage to restrain the beast adequately. As I held the screaming aircraft perched on the top of our backyard picnic table, my dad made a few more adjustments to the needle valve to tune the engine. It certainly was exhilarating! Feeling the air rushing past me, feeling the splatter of nitromethane droplets hitting my face and arms. WOW!
Then it happened… Apparently, glue that holds a solid wood motor mount of an aircraft that has been sitting in the attic of a southern California home for a couple of decades may lose some of its strength. Who knew? But that’s exactly what happened. In an instant, the entire engine and motor mount, running full speed, pulled out of the front of the airplane and struck my dad in the right hand. I remember there was a lot of blood. However, we didn’t find out the full extent of the damage until we arrived at the local emergency room. His index finger had been deeply cut from the third knuckle all the way to his tip. The bones in that finger were shattered, and the nerves and tendons damaged as well. He received three more deep lacerations on his other fingers each requiring stitches. One of the other cuts also severed the tendon and nerve on his ring finger. I honestly don’t remember how many stitches it took to sew him up, but it was a lot. The worst part of the injury was the index finger. It was really messed up.
My dad made his living with his hands. So getting healed and back to work was a big priority to him. Now my dad was a very tough guy. I am not exaggerating. Tough as nails. But over the next several months I watched him perform his physical therapy using a “nerf” type ball to practice squeezing and I could tell he was in a great deal of pain. Eventually he healed. We epoxied the motor mount back in the plane and flew the heck out of it. But I will never lose the respect I have for a model airplane motor!
The first thing most folks think of when they read anything about an injury involving a radio control aircraft is something similar to my dad. Most of the time they are correct. Since that incident, I have had to patch up a few other diced digits and send the to the emergency room. Even though trauma is the number one type of medical emergency involving radio controlled aircraft, its not the only one. Poisoning, fire, and medical emergencies can also occur. In fact, safety is, and always will be a very important part of model aviation.
As I mentioned above, trauma is the most common form of injury both on and off the flying field. Propellers and rotor blades get the gold medal for the sheer number of injuries so please join me in a discussion about:
Your Kid's Teeth
on May 8th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
The problem with “modern” moel engines is their power to weight ratio – in the 1970′s RC engines were reasonably user-friendly in terms of (limited) capacity and output. Nowadays even a modest sized engine (e.g. .40 2-stroke) puts out significant HP – and the larger 4-strokes (1.20 and above) have a greater output than “industrial” string trimmers – and you’d never be putting anything sensitive near the working end of one of those when it’s running! Maybe this is yet another argument for the move to electric flight – no need to start a potentially lethal cutting tool!!