Fatal Injury: hit by the prop

On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 at 06:57:38 in message
.com,
" wrote:

This reminds me of a time when I was a kid and watched a friend of mine
stick his fingers into the prop swath of a model airplane. The prop cut
his finger to the bone. I asked him what happened, and he said "I guess
I just forgot it was there because I couldn't see it, and then just
reached in to adjust the idle screw"

Putting your fingers into the prop on models is not uncommon. Many years
ago when there were only two of us at the flying site the other guy did
this and I had to drive him to the nearest hospital.

I had my own rules:

1. Keep your head out the plane of the prop disc, especially if
running at high power.
2. Keep all of you behind the plane of the disc when making
adjustments to the mixture.
3. Only move very slowly.

If you move your fingers slowly and from behind and they inadvertently
enter the prop disc, then you may only receive a slight bruise and a
fright as the blades will tend to throw your fingers back out.


--
David CL Francis