LOL.... true dat!

 

I brought this up to a planker at our club not long ago. He was whining about helicopters being "dangerous" and that they scare him. So I quoted this meme word-for-word, and asked him what HE though was more dangerous. Strangely, he opted out of the conversation, and went back to his table. The funny thing is, that they always want to condemn helicopters/helicopter pilots as being a danger to everyone`s safety because they are "flying lawn mowers" as they call them.

However, in the past couple of years, there have been four of them who had their fingers/hands injured by spinning props. Two have crashed their large nitro powered planes in the pits....one of them barely missing a club member. One of them lost control of his plane and crashed it inside the covered lounge area...again barely missing a club member. I saved the best for last. The CLUB PRESIDENT, crashed a twin nitro powered scale bomber with a 2 meter wing span into a passing car. Causing $1700 damage to the vehicle.

There are six helicopter pilots at this club, and none of us have ever even been burned by a hot muffler....knock on wood. But they want to call us dangerous...lol

 

When we learn rc-helicopters most of us can see the danger in front of us. So we respect it immensely. Also in order to fly proficiently you need a level of discipline and skill which is beyond that of most other rc equipment. This means its not something that is easily just picked up or put down - you need to keep flying to keep your skill set up. Also our flying area is usually much smaller and lower than aircraft. All these things combined gives us a pretty good understanding of our model.

Now RC Planes also takes proficiency but i think because the propellor is smaller I think its easier for a heli pilot to be complacent. But i think its just as dangerous - and i think that the radius from which someone can be affected is significantly greater.

Planes fly at great distances from the pilot and travel at great speeds. If a rc plane pilot looses signal for whatever reason you still have a model travelling at high speed no matter what your failsafe settings. A large plane is flying at speed is going to cause damage if it connects - even if the prop is not spinning.

Its rather ironic that your club has a number of plane incidents but few heli incidents - yet the helis are the dangerous ones. I think its human nature to some extent - the old "them and us" mentality. I know at our club - and we have about 55 members - our level of incidence is very low (touch wood). Infact I only know of one guy who was hit about 8 years ago by a 550. He is ok though but apparently it wasnt pretty. Everyone is aware however and follow the rules fairly well.

 

where i tend to agree with they just think something they dont understand is dangerous... I think we need to keep in mind there are a lot more of them, than heli pilots... so you have a much greater chance of an idiot or someone be complacent... I have meet heli pilots I think are pretty dangerous, and will not be on the flight line if they are flying... and they can fly.. I am not talking about skill, but attitude...