Align Mishap

[Rotor Ruiner]

The other day I decided to purchase a Trex 450 se, after flying my buddies 450 xl. All the helicopter knowledge I had before this incident came from nitro powered models. Just a word of caution and a safety tip to those building electric helicopters.

Please remove the pinion gear from the brushless motor before attempting to set up the ESC.

My ESC was in set up mode and I was setting the 5 options before taking it out for it's maiden flight. During the set up procedure to set the low voltage cut off, I wanted it set to the high setting (EVO 20 Lipo) so I placed the throttle stick at full as you are supposed to do and the main blades instantly spun up and the heli flew into me. I did try to lower the throttle but it had no response. I was lucky enough to get my hand up between my neck and the rotor blades. The final total - 28 stitches, 2 severed tendons, 1 major muscle severed and 1 wrecked Trex SE, Can't fly for 5 weeks.

Align has been great about this incident and has offered to replace the damaged parts or the Trex completely. They do have good quality control, but the odd bad unit can slip out of the factory.

[MikeV]

Ouch!

Glad to hear your weren't more badly injured, could have been worse.

I know this sounds kind of gross, but if you have photos of the wounds I wouldn't mind publishing them just as a reminder to everyone that these are not toys.

If you're interested at all email me, mikev@rchelimag.com

[tdswan]

A friend I was helping and I recently had a similar problem with a Shogun. I was showing him how to set up his radio and we were about the set up the ESC. His throttle was reversed and as he moved the stick up slowly, the ESC then initialized when it received a 0 setting (full up stick because it was reversed). Luckily we were about an arms length from it and I had my hand through the skids to hold it down. It spun up so fast that it threw a tail blade grip right off the hub all the way across the house. After we cleaned out our shorts, we realized the error. It could have been VERY ugly.

I hope you're doing better and this incident didn't shy you away from this wonderful hobby. Best of luck to you.

Troy

[Rotor Ruiner]

Mike - The photo is on the way. The doctor kept refering to the Trex as a "Toy Helicopter"
I explained that at 3000 rpm headspeed equals 384.3 KPH or 240.2 MPH rotor tip speed.
Then I asked him "Do you really think that is a toy?" he responded "Umm . . . No".

Troy - This was a disappointment to be sure. They only way I would stop flying is if both my arms were lost. Then I would learn to use my feet! The throttle was set up properly. I had everything checked out by my LHS and a local Trex Pro. They both think the ESC was the problem.

[broke-again]

Thats a terrible thing you went through and thank goodness you escaped in one piece. Thanks for sharing this with everyone, hopefully it will hit home to others to be very careful around their helis. It may come as some solice to know that more people die from fishing than any other hobby!

What happened to you is thankfully very rare and i hope Align do the right thing by you.

Hope you get better soon.