Lesson Learned - Written By Mike Griffin

When Tom McClain first contacted me about writing this article relating to a near disaster I just experienced, I asked him how should I format it for the readers and he sent me a recent column written by Leonard Neumann pertaining to safety and very similar in nature to what just happened to me, However as I read further into Leonard’s article is was almost Deja Vu for me because of my past experience. Please allow me to digress here for just a moment as it does pertain to what the subject here is. Years ago I flew with the Civil Air Patrol in Tampa and took flying lessons there also. I remember in ground school, the instructor talked about how pilots over time became complacent with routine checklists after spending hundreds of hours in the cockpit and how most human errors were committed not by new pilots, but by pilots who had hundreds or even thousands of hours flying time. My own CFI even told me of a landing he once made in a twin engine plane and when he heard the prop tips hitting the runway, he remembered he had not lowered the gear. He of course knew better but in an instant (some of us over 60 might call it a senior moment) something routine became something forgotten and disaster might have followed.

Leonard’s main point in his article was how to fly safely alone when using a stooge and using well made and failsafe designed stooges. When my incident occurred there were other people around me and I had someone launching me so I was lucky in that respect. But what if they hadn’t been there and I was alone, what would have happened? The stooge I use is one that I got from Tom Morris and it weighs so much I don’t think a Piper Cub would pull it. It is a slab of steel with aggregate on one side to keep it from sliding if you are flying on asphalt although our field is grass. I always attach the stooge to the plane itself and not the tail wheel so I really don’t worry as much about stooge failure as I do getting injured and trying to get out of there by myself. If I had been alone when I stuck my thumb into an 11 x 4 APC prop a little over a week ago, I probably could have wrapped my hand and driven out to civilization and gotten to the hospital. I said probably, but thinking back on the pain, the tears blurring my vision, my blood pressure going through the roof and worrying about losing my thumb, I could have very well wrecked my vehicle injuring myself further or even worse, hurting someone else.

As I sat down to write this and explain what caused this very painful incident, I searched my brain for a reason and probed my mind for what I did wrong that caused this to happen. I can now tell you without a doubt, I still don’t know how this happened.

The following is an account in pictures and words of what actually happened to me on March 6, 2008. Keep in mind I did have somebody launching me and holding the rear of the plane although this re creation does not show that.

I used my electric starter to start the plane. I quit back flipping and hand starting a long time ago after getting “bit” and bruised so many times.

After the OS 46 LA started, I needed to adjust the needle valve, so like I have done so many times before, I walked around behind the prop as the next picture shows.

I adjusted the needle valve and then reached down with my right hand to release the glow starter as shown in the next two pictures.

For a split second I lost concentration and put my left thumb into the spinning prop. The following pictures show the wound right before the stitches were taken out, and the x ray showing where the prop cut the bone. This was classified as an open fracture since the bone was also damaged.

Look closely and you can see the bone cut in the thumb.

This was the result after spending 6 hours in the emergency room. It took 2 hours to get me out of the waiting room and another 4 hours to get the doctor in to suture it and then discharge me. The ER doc asked me if I had gotten my thumb caught in a chain saw if was mangled so badly. We didn’t take any pictures of it before it was sewn up due to the nausea factor on my part. The orthopedic doctor who put the cast on said I was very lucky to still have my thumb. I will not know for some time how much use I will have of it.

If there is any lesson to be learned here it is once that engine is on, take nothing for granted. Even though you have done this hundreds of times, act like it is the first and have a great respect for something throwing around an equivalent of a #11 exacto blade at thousands of RPMs. I will also paint my prop tips as soon as my hand allows.

Ours is a wonderful sport and hobby and since a whole lot of us are not spring chickens anymore, we have to make it a point to remember where our body parts are at any given time in relation to our decreasing reflex time and increasing senior moments. I have no idea what that last sentence meant but it sounded good…….didn’t it.

Mike Griffin

Georgia Aircraft Modelers Association.