By Steve Neu
As a long time club member and your safety officer I get concerned when I see members taking a cavalier attitude in handling their electric powered models. People need to be aware that many of their “toy planes” have more power than the average lawn mower and can do similar damage to flesh with their spinning props. With the battery connected the only thing between you and a running motor are a couple microns of silicon and some computer code.
Some suggestions in no particular order are:
1) Treat a model with a battery plugged in (Armed) and propeller installed as loaded gun—stay behind the prop and don’t point it towards others—also stay out of the arc of the prop rotation.
2) Keep your friends, curious kids and the public at a safe distance when the model is ‘armed’.
3) Do the final ‘arming’ of the model only when you are at the fence line and are ready to taxi or launch your model
4) Never “taxi” your model in the pit area at any time—for multicopters that means no takeoffs from the pit area.
5) Turn off the RC system before bringing the model through the pit area after flying
In closing, please be careful and try to not get distracted when getting your model ready for flight—in my experience a large percentage of safety errors occur when you are working on your plane and talking with your friends—people really don’t multitask very well!
Stay safe!
