Safety is No Accident

Flying RC aircraft comes with some inherent risk. In actual fact, everything we do comes with some level of risk that we intentionally manage and mitigate.

In a car, we make sure our brakes are functioning and our tires have tread. We take care not to speed around a corner. In a similar sense, flying can be as safe or dangerous as you make it. The idea is for safety to be easy and repeatable and not some sort of nanny-state intrusion into your hobby. The idea is to keep your flying experience as safe and enjoyable as possible.

As mentioned, there are always risks involved with this hobby but it’s all about understanding what those risks are, so you can better prevent them from happening. For example, flying in public places - your first RC experience is probably going to be in a public space, and being new to the hobby, you probably have a very poor understanding of how to fly and the things that are likely to go wrong. Murphy tells us that what can go wrong will go wrong and he has been right too many times for my liking. Simple things like dogs, birds, kids, wings, and the sun are all things to be aware of and consider when flying. Yes, even the sun can cause a bad day with an accident that can change your life completely. If you have a club close by I highly suggest you consider joining for the insurance alone. A plane flying into a property is one thing but into a person may be a life-altering expense. Never a truer word was spoken than 'safety is no accident'. Plenty of things in RC can go wrong and if you have your wits about you, you might not get bitten. If you let Murphy run things then anything can go wrong. I’m going to show you what can go wrong and the seriousness of believing these are simply toys and that no caution is warranted. If you really believe this, you are wrong. These so-called ‘toys’ are capable of killing you instantly and indiscriminately. In saying this, there is no exaggeration of this statement. It has happened in the past and will continue to happen if people don’t use their models with common sense and use it safely. Need proof? Well here is a list of different cases to make my point. These stories are tragic and the reason I draw your attention to them is so hopefully they are not repeated. So please, take care at all times.

Man Killed by a 700 size Helicopter In a news report from the Wall Street Journal, a Brooklyn man, Roman Pirozek was killed by remote control operated helicopter. Not only was Pirozek an experienced pilot, but he was also the vice president of his local helicopter hobby club. He was struck by the model and his face was slashed by the rotors during a routine fly in which he was trying to perfect a new trick. Sadly, one of the blades cut off a piece of his skull before scalping him. For more information on this story, you can read it here: http://www.news.com.au/world/man-decapitated-by-remote-controlled-toy-helicopter/news-story/5e1dd8b2ef951c2863906cc53931b158

Man has been left injured after being hit by remote-controlled helicopter In a similar incident to that mentioned above, a man in Berry, NSW, was severely injured when he was struck by a remote-controlled helicopter. One of the aircraft’s rotor blades flew into the man’s face right above his eye. He was lucky to escape with only a few facial injuries but as mentioned above this could have gone incredibly worse. For the full story: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/man-injured-after-being-hit-by-remotecontrolled-helicopter-at-berry-20171228-h0ax4n.html

Young Girl Killed By RC Plane Tara Lipscombe, who is only 13 years old, was walking through a park with her mother in Kent when she was hit on the head with a model plane. Unfortunately, the injury she had sustained was too severe and was the cause of her tragic death a couple of hours later at a local hospital. Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/apr/17/jeevanvasagar2

Toddler’s Eyeball sliced in half by Drone Propeller Oscar Webb, An 18-month-old boy, has suffered from an eye injury causing him to lose an eye after his eye was hit by a propeller off a drone when the operator lost control of the drone. The drone was in the air for about a minute before hitting a tree upon landing and spinning out of control, striking the toddler in the eye. For all the details on this story, read here: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-34936739

In conclusion, the purpose of this article is not to scare you out of this hobby but rather the idea is to help educate you on the risk involved and what can happen. In this way, we can better prepare ourselves for these risks and learn the ways in which we prevent such accidents from occurring. Written by Gozerian

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