Heli Caused Injury Poll

[Slyster]

One incident in 6 years. I did a mode 1 reset on a Jive 80LV ESC in my Outrage 550 a few years ago and it instantly spooled up with no soft start! Nearly needed stitches on the side of my head... lots of blood. It actually looked a lot worse than it was. Thankfully it only got a spin or two before my head stopped it.. or it would have been worse.. also the impact to my skull stripped the main gear. Ever since that day I back off the motor EVERY time I power up a heli on the bench.

[raptor90wm]

my 52inc lcd tv needed new screen after my 450 shot off the table and hit my hand with some blood and very colourful bruises and cost my house insurance €1250, now always unplug motor. Needless to say wife wasn't too happy and didn't let me forget for a while

[Solmanbandit]

Wasn't sure to put it under 450 or micro. I was trouble shooting when I was new on a CP Pro 2. I didn't know better and reversed the throttle on the bench. It throttle up fast and I grabbed it keep it from further damage. I got some minor cuts on my hand.

[Raptorapture]

The EC5 mishap reminded me that despite no heli injury I've had a few heli related tool injuries from screwdriver slipping off an EC5 to xacto becoming blood drawing scalpel innumerable times to soldering iron burns as well as serious ironing iron burn to my knee from mis-applying monokote(early years). Have since bought a forced air heater. Come to think of it my hands must have not known what they were in for attached to me!

[Mojappa]

Nope. In 4 years I haven't gotten hurt yet. Seems a lot of the ones posted so far are from micro helis, I guess learning on a more intimidating size made for more immediate respect for it. The micros come off as safe due to their size but given their dartiness (and unreliability in some cases) they can get out of control quickly. Combine that with the fact that people fly them inside where you have to be too close all the time and its really not surprising that micros cause so many injuries. Luckily though since they're small and light the injuries cause are minor and teach the user soon thereafter about how not to use a "real" RC heli.

[A VIKING]

exactly...and.....
Never get to "comfortable".
Never lose focus.

[koenejet]

took my nano cpx to work and let a client fly it. He slightly lost control for a second and the tail rotor kissed another client who was watching. Cut his lip open. Not too bad, but drew blood. Well, that night, the one who got cut, went to the local hobby shop and bought a brand new nano and a DX6i. Guess he got over it pretty quick.

[Trexwilly]

Ouch!

[{}{steve}{}]

Worst I ever got was a sliced nostril from my mCP X BL. Flying too close and a big gust of wind blew it right at me...went almost completely through my nostril! It definitely was a wake up call for me and I stopped flying so close.

[mkovalcson]

Originally Posted by A VIKING

exactly...and.....
Never get to "comfortable".
Never lose focus.

Words to live by

I know my flying style has changed a LOT since my last incident.

[flyingquisinart]

I hit my knuckle in an accidental low RPM spool up on my 550 taking short cuts and setting up the ESC in my basement. It was probably at 300-500 RPM (only??) and clipped my knuckle. Blood splattered like a bad movie. It was a good reminder for me not to take shortcuts when I should know better (disengage the motor from the gear train).

[shahram72]

I once had a minor cut and bruise from a 300 size Esky heli that I was trying to get working with a programmable Tx. I was new and as I was trying to figure out why the ESC would not arm and moving the throttle back and forth, I put the throttle back to zero and set the Tx down, thought it was safe. Blades were on. Big mistake! It spooled up on the kitchen table and the tail cut my hand and the mains hit my arm. They had not spun up fast enough yet to cut so just a bruise on my arm but it could have been much worse. Lesson is take blades off when setting up ESC and teach all newbies about the dangers of not understanding throttle channel reverse setting, which was the initial cause of the unintended spool up. I keep seeing posts about throttle ESC arming issues and no one ever warns of reverse throttle. I was in an active thread with many helping me with my ESC issue and no one ever told me, check the throttle reverse setting.

[kingmeow]

Originally Posted by {}{steve}{}

Worst I ever got was a sliced nostril from my mCP X BL. Flying too close and a big gust of wind blew it right at me...went almost completely through my nostril! It definitely was a wake up call for me and I stopped flying so close.

Attachment 462430

Wow, I would never guessed that it would do THAT kind of damage!

[Bananaslug]

Originally Posted by {}{steve}{}

Worst I ever got was a sliced nostril from my mCP X BL. Flying too close and a big gust of wind blew it right at me...went almost completely through my nostril! It definitely was a wake up call for me and I stopped flying so close.

Attachment 462430

That is exactly what happened to me! Except mine was on the left side. I was sure it had gone through, and went to be stitched up. Turns out I'm a wuss and it didn't need stitches after all.

[{}{steve}{}]

Originally Posted by Bananaslug

That is exactly what happened to me! Except mine was on the left side. I was sure it had gone through, and went to be stitched up. Turns out I'm a wuss and it didn't need stitches after all.

LOL! You're not a wuss. Blood went all over the place when it hit me and it actually made me a little woozy (probably just the adrenaline). I didn't go to the hospital because I was embarrassed

[kiwianaBrad]

Only time things got outa hand were when a buddy came in after a flight and sat his transmitter and heli on the bench ready to disconnect, in doing that the transmitter was turned off before the heli and failsafe was on full throttle....i was grabbing my gear hiding, it was so close to full throttle, while he was ducking for cover he somehow managed to turn the transmitter back on and spool down! Scary as!

[Diogenes]

I got several nice slices across my lower back earlier this summer from my 130x, bruised real well too.

Was flying inverted at 90% with an hp10 motor and it drifted down and toward me, punched the collective, but in the wrong direction.

Ducked down so it missed my head, but it hit my lower back for several rotations. Was using lynx mains and they're sharper than stock or kbdd.

Upside was that since the heli hit something soft, it wasn't damaged.

The scars are covered by tattooing now.

Glad it wasn't my 450x......

[kingmeow]

What did you have on when it happened? T-shirt?

[Diogenes]

yep, a thin t-shirt

Glad I didnt get hit after I got tattooed in that area, I think my tattooer would have kicked my butt. He tells me the "shirt" he's doing for me is the biggest project he's done in five years

[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.