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| Plankers watching helis for the first time LOL too funny!!! | |
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Well, this certainly wasn't the first time I've seen helis fly, or stunt flying with choppers, and I've seen videos of Danny and his brother fly online. I've visited our local chopper club's saturday flying sessions several times, and seen some pretty impressive chopper flying by a few of our local experts.
I'd say about 75% of the times I've gone out to watch chopper clubs I've seen at least one chopper crash. Of the 7 or so choppers I've seen crash up to this point, 3 of them were within 20 feet of myself and others, and they were NOT controlled crashes. One of them was close enough to hear pieces flying by my head and that one scared me enough that it really discouraged me from getting into choppers, even though they interest me a great deal. (It was a big chopper coming almost straight at me, and it crashed inverted in a pile drive maybe 15 feet away on the pavement where me and a friend were standing).
That crash wasn't as scary as the fight that ensued between that pilot and the one he claimed "distracted him" by flying close and forcing him into an uncontrolled flip over. It came pretty close to fisticuffs, and it polarized the club and caused a significant rift that was NOT fun to watch. I was watching the other pilot at the time of the incident, and he wasn't anywhere near the guy, but depth perception is sometimes muddied when you've got thousands of dollars in the air and you're worried about losing your investment. The worst part was that the crash pilot got violently angry and verbal at the other pilot while that pilot still had a similarly sized chopper in the air. It took some very skilled flying to bring that bird down safely with the angry crash pilot in his face. That kind of conflict would never happen in "planker" club. . . but maybe that's because we fly mostly full-contact combat, so violence and destruction is a weekly occurence for us, and is the primary reason we fly together.
What amazed me the most about the St. George performance was not just the amazing flying, but the fact that Danny was flying inches off the ground while only a dozen or two feet away from a sizeable group of spectators. I think we sometimes give exceptionally talented people too much credit, and frankly, too much of our trust. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy it enormously, I most certainly did. You notice in the video that I moved CLOSER to the performance rather than away from it! It was the best flying I've seen to date, though the crash wasn't all that dramatic compared to others I've seen.
So I have a few questions. If a pilot is flying that risky of a routine near people, and someone (heaven forbid) got seriously hurt by a chopper blade impaling him in the face or whatever, would that pilot be covered under AMA insurance? He was flying on a controlled flightline and everything, so I'm sure he wasn't breaking any of the AMA club rules. Has anybody ever seen an RC accident where people or property got damaged, and AMA kicked in to cover those damages? And does AMA cover incidents only at AMA sanctioned fields, or does AMA insurance cover park flyers and such?
Also, in crashes I've seen before the parts flew a lot further than they did when Danny crashed. Are there types of chopper blades & other components that are designed to keep the debris field small when there are mishaps of this sort?