man, no safety provisions? that shouldnt even be AMA legal.

Here is the new club I was at today,I will take some pic's the next time out and show ya the landing situation.
http://www.wcmaa-rc.com/default.htm

I use a saw horse and home made holder to assemble
and refuel my planes. Then use the club bench for
starting engines.



Bob

Cowboydfk,
Be carefull. Some of the examples here are for working on your planes, not starting them.

Here are some links to starting bench plans:

http://www.meroke.com/safetybench.htm
This is for the picture shown in the thread.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_75...counter/tm.htm
About 2/3 way down is some plans from GunfighterII

I have built two of each of these benches for our field.
I personally prefer the flat table from GunfighterII to the Meroke style.
Everyone has their own preference, some even still prefer ground starting.

Go ahead and build one and take it to the field.
That is what I did. They fell in love with them and we now have 4.
It may help you get in good with everyone in short order.

We have had very little trouble with anyone hogging them.
We made it clear they are for starting planes not storing or working on them.
Some people leave their starting gear there.
That is fine, especially when mine aren't working properly.

I hope this helps.
Good Luck,
KW_Counter

Our field just recently got pilot gaurds at the pilot stand areas. It used to just be open. We don't have any plane restraints, but we do have the holes in the concrete of our pit area for the tail restraints. We have a few tables for the older guys that can't get on the ground. Most just do what I do, and hold it with their hand. I do want to get a tail restraint for a added safety though. All the recent talk about the loss of fingers is got me a bit freaked out.[&:]

HI brett65
Are the tables that your "older guys" use, the Engine Starting Safety Stands type of restrain? That is a good idea that you will be getting a tail restrain for starting it on the ground. Imagine a 60 size or larger engine starting WIDE open when you thought it was at idle, while you are lightly holding it on the ground. That plane could get away from you, cut you up, and then attack anyone near by. Two weeks ago my engine was at WIDE open when it started. It was on my Engine Starting Safety Stand so there was problem. That does not seem to happen to others. I wonder why?

No, our tables are just tables. They are planning on rebuilding them, so I will probably mention that we should build them with a couple uprights for safety sake. The size of them would allow for two restraints per table. Some people though didn't like the pilot fences because they thought it was something to run into, but I told them that I am something to run into as well, and would rather them hit some wood and lattice.

Hey Brett,

Our club installed a chain link fence last year.
So far I have not seen any one hit it, maybe it
made us all better Pilots .


Bob


Never stop flying the Plane.

Our club uses the "Meroke" type stand, we have at least 10 of them. The pilot guards that were put in last summer are PVC pipe plastic fence screen. I have seen them stop airplanes with little to no damage. When I first checked out the field before I joined I saw the stands and thought that it would be nice not having the plane on the ground and not having to bring along my own restraint, (even though I already had one). It didn't take me long to grasp the improvement in safety as well. These stands have probably prevented more injuries than anyone can ever know.

Brett65,
A popular ground restraint at our field is a heavy bag of lead or steel.
Attached to it is 2 leather or nylon cords that go up under the
the stabs to the top of the fuse and are tied with a quick release knot.
When you are ready to fly untie the cords and taxi to the runway and take off.
The reason these are so well liked is it prevents the need to pick up a plane with a spinning prop.
You'll have to experiment a little to make sure you've got enough weight.
I think they weigh around 10 pounds.
Good Luck,
KW_Counter

I watched a guy at our field start is super stick; when it started it went to full throttle. Turned out, the tx was on the wrong model[:@]. Luckly he had a good grip on the plane. Our club has just the wire spools and everyone starts his engine on the ground. The only one with the stake is the same guy with the super stick, and he sticks 'em in 2 lil pipes flush with the ground so his 50cc Edge can't go nowhere. Seeing this thread; I'm gonna bring up making new stand, like the ones ya'll are talking about at our club meeting.

Hi fly boy2
Good report. I like your support. I know others have started their engines at full throttle. It is so embarrassing that they just do not mention it. In the meantime the new people start the engines like they are told, without restrains, and some may get hurt from a plane attacking them. All because people are too embarrassed to be the leaders in suggesting that there are safer ways to start our engines. In our club, about 60 members, we have had about 8 members donate the money and build 8 new stands. Any one member out there, or two or three, can pool their money, download my free plans(see above), build one stand, and donated it to your club. You will feel great about it every time you go to the field. Last time I looked into it, the material cost for one stand was about $60.00.

Like I said before,the one guy brought up the stand Idea and the older members shot the idea down,I still can't get over that one.Mabe some of them club members are just stuck in a rutt and wanna do it the same way they done it for 40 years.

I love PVC. Thanks for the pic Phoenix. I just picked up my elbows and cross to make me a holder like yours for my T-28

Hello Villa. The stands are great we have 10 at our field. We even made a couple bigger for the bigger planes. They make life so much easier at the field. Also a 2.4 radio would have prevented the wrong model mishap. I did that once with my 72mhz and the stand saved my plane. It will never happen again with my Spektrum though thank goodness. Anyway here are some photos of our stands at the field. Notice the size of the one with the cub on it?

Hi hdwideglide03
Nice looking stands. Your center photo shows an electric starter on the stand "wing". I usually put my transmitter at that spot. Sometimes, after the engine starts and I am busy doing adjustments and running the engine, the transmitter vibrates off that small "wing" and hits the ground. I hate it when that happens. On my design that "wing" is much larger, the lumber the main gear sits on is rotated 90 degrees, and the stand is much stronger. Thanks for helping get the "good news" out.

At our field there was a coat hanger on the vertical arms that I hung my transmitter on.

Hi w8ye
That is a good addition. Great idea.
I like to take every opportunity to promote the use of these Engine Starting Safety Stands because I am saddened whenever I hear of a hobbyist who becomes injured so severely that he drops out of this wonderful hobby. The stand I promote is naturally the one that I re-designed from a very good existing plan from a club in NY state. I am told by my club member who maintains our website, http://www.wilsonrc.org/news.php, (see the DOWNLOAD section on the left of the page) that many people have downloaded my free plans from our website. Do you know that not one person has ever mentioned that they built my stand and offered a comment? A few have commented very positively on our website, but right HERE is were these stands should be promoted if you are interested in helping others. That is human nature I guess. I'm the only one that has ever promoted that stand. Endorsements from others would sure help promote the use of these Engine Starting Safety Stands which would bring more safety to our hobby. If you cannot decide between the stand I suggest and the original stand (see http://www.meroke.com/safetybench.htm ) why not have an engineering type member in your club review the two designs and offer comments. We have many engineers who come to RCUniverse. I challenge any engineering type here to review the two designs and post comments here. I do sound like I'm selling something and for this I'm embarrassed. Our club had built about 8 of the older design and about every few years we had to work on them to tighten them up. Many eventually fell apart. Scrap lumber had been used and some stands even were painted. In our case the paint promoted some of the wood rot we experienced. I took the problem on as a challenge and came up with what I have on our website. My reward was in the maybe 200 hours of enjoyment I spent doing a stress analysis on the older design, coming up with improvements based on the failures I had seen, drawing up the new design, detailing all of the pieces, then building the first stand to confirm the dimensions. That time is Priceless. I did not think it would be this hard promoting it. So be it. I'm having a great time.

I have promoted construction projects of the stand that was featured in the AMA Model aviation magazine back some 7 years ago at two flying fields and they are still in use today. I've been to a half dozen fields in recent years and all of them had the safety stands. I have one at my home that I keep in the garage for when I want to run an engine on a plane.

To me, approval is utilization. They are at all the fields and they are used. That's good enough for me.

Hi w8ye
That is interesting that you have seen the older tables in use for a long time yet the ones at our field (also about the same age and built to the same design) have needed repairs every few years and many have been scrapped due to wood rot. In my original analysis of the problem, I noted that our tables were being rolled over weekly to move them for mowing of the grass, since two people usually were not available to carry them out of the way. That rolling then over put much more stress on the tables than normal use would. Our new design requires adding two wheels so one person can easily move the tables for mowing. Do you recall if the high longevity tables you have seen had wheels on them and were built with pressure treated lumber?

Check this out and see if it what you are after http://www.rcuniverse.com/market/item.cfm?itemId=492689
wattmeter

I made one of these out of 1" pvc, and it works great for high/mid/low wing as well as trike and taildragger gear. You can break it down easily and take it to the feild also. That is a big +. I like how it sits perfect height on my workbench also. Makes it easy to work on planes right side up, or upside down.

The first 5 were built of untreated yellow pine and were painted with outside house paint. They are not rotten yet but are put away inside 5 months of the year. The others have all been made of treated lumber and are unpainted and are left out all year. All these have wheels for the mowing duties.

Where is pgh pa?

Pittsburg