Well, I screwed up and just about killed myself in the process. So what am I going to do? Share with everyone so you can get a good laugh and hopefully someone, somewhere, won't make this mistake again.

Six weeks ago I purcahsed a SuperStar 40 ARF, a OS .46 FX, and a Futaba 6XAS. I spent the next week cleaning out a room in the basement to use as my hanger. When I finished cleaning, I set up a work bench, laid out all the parts of the plane, and went to dinner with plans to start building when I got home. As I was leaving the restaurant, I slipped off the curb and tore a ligament in my ankle. Spent the next week on the sofa with my foot propped up.

After getting the okay from my doctor to be on my ankle, my wife 'allowed' me to start on the plane. During the engine installation I placed the prop on the engine, hand tightened the nut, and bolted the engine in place. The plan was to remove the prop the next day to paint the tips . . . but I forgot.

I completed the plane a few nights later and decided to break-in the engine over the weekend. I took the plane into the front yard, got a couple of bricks and placed them in front of the rear wheels to keep the plane still, fueled the tank, set the needle valve and throttle according to the manual, and started the engine with an electric starter. Once started, I stood up to walk behind the plane to remove the glow plug starter. As I began to stand, the prop and spinner detached from the engine and flew up, right at me. The prop sliced through the collar of my shirt and the spinner left a bruise on my collar bone. Just half an inch up and to right and it would have sliced my throat!

So, for you newbies that haven't started building your plane yet, be careful as you leave the restaurant; you don't want to hurt yourself so you can't work on your plane! Oh, and you also may want to make sure the prop is properly secured when starting the engine.

I am sure your going to get a lot people chiming in on this one but for the love of god you have bad luck. Or maybe you have good luck as the prop could have been higher huh!

Glad your safe.

Don't feel bad, accidents (as much as we try to avoid them) happen to all of us at some time or another. This should prevent you from ever making that mistake again.

But there are SOOOOOO many others to make!

Welcome to this great hobby, and may your future mishaps be painless ones!

So you learned a lesson . . . . but how was the food at the restaurant?

It was great! My wife and I went to Outback.

Excellent choice!

I don't know if it's the seasoning on their steaks or the blooming onions; but every time I go to the Outback - well it comes right outback!

Hmmm...

Down-Under Syndrome?

I had a guy starting a saito 180 at the field. It was a new plane so everyone was standing around watching. He and the guy helping kept yelling at everyone to get behind the prop. As my friend and I walked around the tail I looked at him and said "I have never in over 27 years seen a plane throw a prop" and as the last word left my mouth, there was this strange ungodly noise and the prop went zinging across the pitts and bounced off the fence and flew 90% of the way across the runway.

You can never be too carefull.

My only question is why he didn't have the second nut on the prop that comes with it to stop that from happening.

AdmiralHam, you are one lucky guy. I am glad to hear you didn't get caught by the prop though. We had a guy in our club in Boone, NC that had a prop cut him three times on the side of the head. It just shows that we all need to be careful.

Close shave! .......I'd lose that brick method of restraint too, if I were you. Why not use two pipes driven into the ground, or stand behind the wing,straddling the fuse-letting horiz stab rest on back of legs...or tether tail with rope tie-down. ......I find it hard to tighten props with plastic spinners, and now use mostly aluminum "spinner nuts"
Good luck!

Yeah well, after I ran inside to make sure the prop didn't sever my jugular, I reattached the prop and started the engine again. The manual that came with the engine had a section on breaking-in the engine. After adjusting the mixture, the manual said to bring the engine to full throttle. When it hit full throttle, the plane jumped the bricks. I was sitting beside the plane, between the wing and h-stab, so it was easy to grab the plane.

The next day I went to Lowes and bought some PVC pipe to hold the plane in place when testing the engine. After almost getting chopped up into fish bait, the plane jumping the bricks seemed like a minor problem :stupid:

Ya know... I was going to mention that brick thing.

Sounds like you definately learned your lesson.

A few weeks back I was hand starting a 4 stroke and got careless. Lets just say I swore the tip of my middle finger was broke from the kickback. I didn't go to the doctor, but there was a lot of pain involved. In fact, when I sqeeze my fingers together I still get a slight pain that reminds of what I did.

A couple of months ago I finished a 80" Spacewalker with a YS91FZ engine.

Built a stand for it out of 1/2" PVC and placed the new bird in the stand for initial tests. Tied the tail of the plane to my truck tire and looked the whole thing over real close.

....Tied off...stand secure....prop tight....spinner tight...let's crank her up!

Started just fine, idled just fine, top end just fi......

...What's happening??? The PVC stand is coming apart! Oh, God! I forgot to glue it! The whole 2-second disaster seemed to be in slow motion.......

Well, at about 9,000rpm that stand failed and the bird dropped about two feet to the ground. Thank heaven I had tied the tail to the truck. Well, the prop hit (Zinger) and flew into a million pieces. My dog was next to me and I've never seen an animal run so fast. Won't come anywhere near my planes anymore, she just shakes her head and mumbles something like "you idiot".

No real harm done, but it could have been real bad.

Needless to say, now I not only glue my stands, but duct-tape them, too! LOL

AdmiralHam . . .Thanks for having a sense of humor about the dinner thing - I've never tried Outback but Bruno may keep me away with the comment about it coming right outback ! But I sure got a good laugh as I was reading Crash_N_Burns story and thinking about his poor dog. Worst I've been bit was the spring starter on my 41cc kicked the prop back faster'n I got my hand / thumb out of the way. Took six months for that nail to fall off and didn't it hurt. I keep reading these tales of horror and I might just stay smart - - - and Lucky !

WARNING, this is long but a chuckle NOW,,
Gotta add this adventure, a few years back I had bought a telemaster72, built and ready, I decided to go to the local hobby shop for fuel and other "extras". My wife was not totally impressed with the whole plane thing, the prop scared her! Anyhue, enroute to the hobby store a car crossed the center line, hit us head on, totaled the car we had only owned for a month, but we were pretty much "intact", after pulling my glasses from the defroster!
Well, finally the day of the solo arrived, as the engine ran up it was spitting and sputtering to beat all, as I reached,(from behind) to adjust it coughed and jumped a little, just enough to angle the prop at my wedding ring, which it hit, twisting my thumb into the path as well, thus severing my left thumb! Yes it did that much damage, enroute to the hosp. I lost so much blood I was nearly unconscious on arrival. Well believe it or not the plastic sergon who politly replaced my thumb after a few jokes and a couple hours of surgery offered to buy the plane! My wife did in fact sell it (she figured one car and one limb was enough!), and now I'm back at it again, lessons learned, and even own a pair of kevlar gloves that I was issued at work! But needless to say she's not impressed again!!

Holy cow...........What a story

My son and I built this stationary holder for his trainer out of 3/4" PVC pipe and some pipe insulation. It works great to hold the plane when breaking in engines and give you mobility. It also saves your shoes from nitro fuel when running the engine rich during breakin. Saw this idea somewhere here on RCU along with many others - thanks RCU and to the rest of you Fly On!

Holy Cow #2!!!

I read admiralham's experience and said to myself "Phew" just as I scrolled down to read 4 point roll's comment which started w/ "Phew". Then down to hawk49090's story and I said "Holy Cow" just as I read coomarlin's reply... "holy cow". I'm glad I switched to electric when my cox teedee flew away w/ my guillow's arrow.

not the same thing, but i did a stupid one today,
i borrowed the elev servo from my h9 cessna the other night
i put a new one in last night minus the 4 screws that holds it in the plane, I mean i had the linkage and everything hooked up.
I went out to the field today a little windy but flyable,
checked all controls everything seemed fine.
taxi'd out took off thought to myself sure took a lot of elevator and about 20 feet later tail dropped engine pointed to the sky,
my first instinct i thought battery came loose and slid to the back of the fuse (NOPE) i came around was to fast for fisrt pass banked around engine died wind at its back, was about a 45 degree dive i had all elevator i could get it leveled out as it hit the ground.
only damage it ripped the landing gear out. and cracked the plastic wing tip.
I got it back to the flight line removed the wing and there was the elevator servo out of its mount, all i can say is senior moment i guess, no april fool joke but i turned 39 on 4-1.
if weather permits i'll have my new 60size h9 p51 flying this weekend.
but i will tripple check all everything before its maiden and the check it all again.

Admilralham,

Join us at charlotteaeromodelers, we have plane hold down tables, and you can barbeque out at the field! Instead of those dangerous restaurants.

Well, I have been around the hobby now for about a year, have not flown yet, but have been building. Yesterday was the big day. I took my baby (LT-40) that I spent all winter building to the field, and had it checked out. Well, it wasn't going to fly because one of my solder links on the wing aileron was cracked. Oh well, the engine needed to be broken in anyway.

Well, the LT- 40 has a 46 fx on it, brand new. When I began to get ready to start it up at my instructors direction, I got a chill down my spine. After reading about all of the accidents that happen, here I am face to face with the demon. Nervous as heck, I started it up, I never in my life knew how much power that little engine has. My instructor had me hold the plane and tail down as he throttled it up, unreal is all I can say. That plane wanted to go...It was almost difficult to hold and the wind that engine gave off was unbelieveable!! I then realized that I was not playing around with a toy here.

After I left the field, I stopped and bought some paint to paint all of my prop tips.

I got one, I traded for an enya.15 back in the spring, figured, I'd check it out so I made a mount out of a 1 x 4 in the vise, fired it up and was adjusting things when the tip of my finger got in the way of the prop, longways, well when it hit , I was afraid to look cause I just knew the end of my finger would be stuck on the wall, but luckily it wasnt, but it sliced through the fingernail and took 6 months to get back to normal........Rog