Sasless,
You are right we are having mustering accidents, on an increasing curve as more and smaller outfits try the trade without the mentoring which previous larger companies used to do. There are some moves afoot to curb their hell bent desire to kill themselves but it will take time.
One case recently had a prob, knew he did by his flight path as he continued to climb to turn to a more clear area. He must never have been severely mentored from day one to understand the basic law 'land immediately'. I hope St. Peter is giving him a bloody good lecture as it’s always the mess left behind that is the hardest.
On the other hand back when the heavy shooting for BTEC and the big eradication programs were done I can quotes figures of in excess of half a million flight hours over four companies and fifteen years with five write off, only one of which was fatal. A couple of smaller outfits in Queensland had worse figures.
I can see that in areas such as the Texas grain growing industry there must be heaps of wires which would be much harder to plan for than on straight ag or where we work where there are none.
There is one trick that can be employed with any two bladed systems and that is just before the shot is fired set it up so that you are just easing down on the collective ever so slightly. Takes the bounce and weight out of the firearm and sets it up 'just perfect' so to speak. Even when you are nailing them a-la-Custer at one per second from less than twenty metres, it's much easier for the shot to be dead accurate and doesn't take much practice.
My second go at lecturing shooters was for the Dept of Primary Industry for the TB program a room (80) full of die hard ex Vietnam blokes and crusty but hard ex ringers all press ganged into being shooters as de facto stock inspectors on short term contract. I spent quite a while telling them how to kill these critters and get the blood gushing out so to speak, so they didn't waste my time on the job.
A mate of mine was highly amused when the next lecturer was a first aid jockey who spent a while telling them how to stop blood coming out of everywhere, quite a paradox.
One of the courses later run by the other shooter crowd the Conservation Commission (another paradox, they shot all the donkeys and brumbies) had recruits who had never even shot a pea rifle as kids. That was hard work.
On that course I had an experienced shooter sit in the cab on the ground to show them good position and where the skid and blades were and where the target would be etc. I couldn't believe it when he jumped in without a clearance check and was sitting there waving the unfriendly end generously around the assembled newbies. That's when you speak real quiet, like, "right now everyone stand very still while I show you something."
One point of safety we nearly found the hard way. In the drawer beside where I type this is a flash eliminator just hanging by one tang. That was the result of heavy loads used for the buffalo shooting, so if using heavy loads take the things off first; it’s the second one I have seen. It's a good sober up exercise to think of it scything through the air in front of a rotor blade.
I always invited the shooters to be aware of the same things that pilots are supposed to be like, 'down wind you only pee' which is why I coined the phrase way back when.
The underlying saftey valve though is a driver with lots of low level maneuvering experience.
all the best tet