Linden Accident - Question about "Droop Lock"

"Bob Chilcoat" wrote in message
...
I was talking to a Sikorsky pilot at our airport about this accident:
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...26X01530&key=1

Another one at the weekend, this time in an S300:

From the Adelaide Advertiser:

Pilot walks into chopper blade

04oct05

A 58-year-old Queensland helicopter instructor is in a serious condition
after walking into a slowly revolving rotor blade.

The pilot - with more than 30 years experience - works at Becker Helicopters
which is based at the Sunshine Coast Airport at Maroochydore.
He had just completed a training flight in the two-seat Hughes 300 chopper
when the accident happened at 9.20am (AEST) today.

Police said he had shutdown the chopper, removed his helmet and was walking
away when he was hit on the head by the slow moving main blades.

The pilot received a compound fracture to the skull and was rushed by the
Energex Community Rescue Helicopter to the Royal Brisbane Hospital in a
serious condition.

Becker Helicopters chief executive Jan Becker said the man was from the
Sunshine Coast and had worked at the company for three years.

"It's just one of those things," she said.

Mrs Becker said staff and trainees were receiving counselling.

Energex pilot John Hodges said the blades were moving between 20 and 30
revolutions a minute when the accident occurred.

"He was lucky the blades were moving relatively slow," he said.

"Had they been going at full speed it would have been all over for him."