John Preston
Safety Comes First
4025 Peppertree La., Silver Spring, MD 20906
This column is provided to address items of concern regarding safety aspects of model aviation activities. Content of the column, however, is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the official position of the Academy of Model Aeronautics.
Introduction
Some of you missed reading "Safety Comes First" in the last two issues, and you have my apology. After 11 years of trying to make this an interesting column, I reached burnout and needed a break. However, your letters continue to arrive in my mailbox, so here is another attempt to save you from your own worst enemy—yourselves!
If you think you may have read some of the following accounts in previous Safety columns, you're probably correct. The accidents are similar, but the people who were the victims are different. I hate to say it, but if we could eliminate propellers from model airplanes my mail from readers would probably cease.
Never fly alone
Never fly alone. How many times have I used this as a topic of discussion? There are still some readers who don't think this is good advice. Dr. Frank Marsh is not one of them.
Frank called me several weeks ago after he got out of the hospital where he had been taken after an 11x8 prop tore up his knee. Like most prop injuries, Frank's occurred while he was starting an engine. In this case it was a .70-size four-stroke engine installed in a Telemaster, and when he inadvertently bumped the throttle stick on the transmitter, the prop tore into his left knee.
Had he been driving a car with an automatic transmission, it is possible that Frank could have driven himself to the emergency room for treatment of the wound. His vehicle, however, was an RV with a straight stick which, of course, requires a functional left leg to operate the clutch. Fortunately, Frank is a ham radio operator and his RV is equipped with a mobile ham radio.
This incident occurred in the Dayton, Ohio, area, and Frank managed to get through to a hobby store in Columbus. The store's owner phoned Frank's club president who immediately drove out to the field and took Frank to the emergency room. The injury required a 10-day hospital stay.
Are there still readers who think that flying alone is as safe as flying with a group? If anyone answers "yes," I hope he is also a ham radio operator or at least has a CB radio in the car.
Safe engine-starting techniques
In the last year it seems I've written a lot about devices that are intended to minimize accidents which occur during engine starting and tuning operations. Different designs for devices that use electric starters and keep the operator behind the prop were sent in by Charles Holden, Bill Nelson, and Guy Coraccio. In my opinion, any one of these should significantly reduce your chances of having a prop chew you up while you're starting or tuning a model airplane engine.
However, in a recent letter George Lieb disagrees:
"Using any type of device to start engines doesn't make you much safer than starting them by hand. It only prevents the small nicks gotten when flipping the prop. The real damage is when we get part of our anatomy caught in the prop of a running engine."
George conjectures that the most probable cause of injury might be summed up by the old saw, "familiarity breeds contempt." After a while it's easy to lose our respect for the engine's power to hurt us. We don't think first; we just do something stupid like reaching through the prop to adjust the needle valve.
George noted that the forerunner of the Holden/Nelson/Coraccio devices was frequently used by Control Line speed fliers in the 1940s. Certainly a major reason why the Holden/Nelson/Coraccio devices are safer than hand starting or hand-held electric starting is that you don't have to reach around or through the prop to adjust the needle valve.
A recent issue of Model Aviation had an ad for Bill Nelson's starting device which the ad calls the Kranking (M.A., August 1991, p. 178). It can be obtained from Ace R/C or from Bill Nelson. Write to: KRANKING Safety Starters, P.O. Box 2563, Beaumont, TX 77704.
Guy Coraccio's "Safe Start Adapter" has formerly been advertised in Model Aviation; however, it appears that the manufacturer is no longer in business.
As a postscript to this general area of discussion, a recent letter from Charles Holden commented on the issue of whether to ban plastic props because they seemingly were involved in more injuries. Charles stated:
"The question is not whether plastic or wooden props are the most dangerous. The relevant question would seem to be, 'How do you avoid rotating props altogether?' The answer appears obvious to me. It is as you already explained in the March 1990 issue of Model Aviation."
I agree. Let's not point the finger at plastic props. Wooden props cut, too. Let's, instead, do all we can to keep parts of Homo sapiens out of that spinning arc!
Stooges
Another device intended to minimize the likelihood of prop injuries is known in Control Line circles as a stooge. For CL fliers, the stooge anchors a model to the ground and provides a means for the pilot to release the model at will. In RC, a stooge doesn't require a remote release but merely anchors the model securely so that both hands can be used for starting operations.
Last month I received a letter from Fred Hosage Jr. that included a photograph of a stooge known as the Finger Saver Safety Retainer. Fred said this device was designed by his father and has recently been granted a U.S. patent (No. 4,993,672).
A few days after I received the letter my mail carrier delivered an example of a Finger Saver to my door. It has two sharpened steel spikes that can be pressed into the ground. Hinged to the spikes is a yoke with two padded uprights which retain a model by its horizontal stabilizer. After the engine has been started, pulling the model a short distance rearward causes the uprights to fall to the ground, thereby allowing the model to be taxied to the runway.
Anyone wishing to purchase a Finger Saver Safety Retainer should write to Finger Saver, P.O. Box 1416, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.
Another letter on the same subject arrived from Donald Doncaster, who is retired and spends his summers in the North (Amsterdam, New York) and winters in the South. He says he has "seen a lot of runaways run into the starter or into the pilot," and he offers a simple solution: drive two 1/4-in. diameter by 30-in. long metal rods into the ground and place your model so that the rods contact the leading edge of the wing. You could also place the rods to contact the leading edge of the stabilizer in a manner similar to the Finger Saver.
Donald said he has used this method of restraining his models for over 20 years but has never seen anyone else use it. He asked me to "supply an explanation if this method isn't the answer to the problem as you see it?" Sorry, Donald. I really don't have the answer. I can speculate that maybe modelers exhibit the same attitude to their hobby that I see exhibited by people who don't fasten their seat belts in cars. It's another case of the "It won't happen to me" syndrome.
Dangerous props
It isn't often that I receive letters from modelers' wives. Such a letter, signed S. Pierce, did arrive recently, though, and it described a prop accident that occurred at home and resulted in her husband, Jim, having to have 12 stitches to close the wound. In the words of Mrs. Pierce, here's what happened:
"My husband loves to fly RC planes and on occasion I fly also. I was just reading your story on how accidents also happen at home and I had to write.
"My husband, Jim, had his favorite junk plane (a very old Freedom 20) in the living room and was doing some work on the engine. After he had replaced the prop, using his fingers, he started to spin it (very gently). Suddenly it snapped back and flew right into his leg. In less than two seconds the prop had sliced a hole in his left leg that was about nine inches long. He ended up having to have 12 stitches, nine on top and three under, and now has a very ugly scar that he will have for the rest of his life.
"He no longer plays with the prop when he does engine work. The prop can be very dangerous and is definitely not a toy. I hope other people don't have to learn how dangerous props can be in the same way that Jim did."
I started out this column by saying: "If we could eliminate propellers from model airplanes . . ." Nuff said.
A close call
A newspaper clipping sent to me by Ralph Turner (Avon, Ohio) contained a letter to the editor of the Lorain Morning Journal that read in part:
"You very nearly had a news story about a small plane crash at Lorain County Regional Airport. Federal Aviation Administration investigators would have discovered the 'mysterious' cause to be a red remote-controlled toy plane about four feet wide which was being flown in the landing pattern of the airport. This same remote toy passed over our plane, within 20 feet, as we were on final approach, approximately 500 feet from the ground and going 90 mph. Had we collided, it could have obscured our vision, damaged any of the delicate controls, or tangled in the propeller.
"While the sky looks like a very big place, there are some crowded air spaces and a great many rules for their use. This is for the protection of those in the air and on the ground. I find it difficult to understand how a person, who has already been warned by airport officials, can so disregard these rules and continue to entertain himself at the possible expense of another person's life."
After Ralph wrote the letter which accompanied the newspaper clipping, he held off mailing it while he attempted to determine who the model flier was. He was successful: it turned out to be an experienced RC modeler (or his son) who used to be in Ralph's club. Ralph isn't sure whether they are members of AMA, but, if they are, I hope they see this column and take my advice to all readers: never fly in the proximity of full-scale air traffic.
The above advice was included in the January 1991 Safety column in which I reported the incident in which an RC model collided with the Goodyear blimp. That incident occurred just six months prior to the one reported above and made national news. We don't need that kind of publicity.
Ni-Cap (glow plug igniter cover)
A reader sent me a note about a product:
"We call it the Ernst Ni-Cap. It is a protective cover that fits all brands of Ni-Cad glow plug igniters. I and many thousands of other modelers have at one time or another dropped our glow plug igniters in the dirt or have watched them roll off the table or have put them in our pockets only to have them short out against keys or some other metal object.
"I had one short out in my pocket a few years ago after I had started my Pylon Racer and pitched it into the air. About five laps into the race, I felt something burning my leg. I was lucky enough to get it out before it burned me, and I was able to finish the race.
"The Ni-Cap does three things:
- prevents shorting;
- eliminates the rolling glow plug igniter syndrome; and
- keeps the plug end clean of foreign objects."
The Ni-Cap is an orange plastic cap that is molded to a tether which has a loop on the end that slips over the shank of a glow plug igniter. The tether prevents you from losing the cap and also serves to prevent the glow plug igniter from rolling off the top of your field box and landing in the dirt. I have one word of caution: when the igniter is in use and the cap and tether are sticking out at right angles to the shank of the igniter, make sure they are facing away from the prop.
If you want to buy a Ni-Cap, contact Ernst Manufacturing, Inc., 37396 Ruben Lane, Sandy, OR 97055; phone (503) 668-5597.
Closing
I usually end up this column by wishing you a safe month. I now believe that a safe month is one in which you don't feed your body parts through a rotating prop!
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
