Silly injuries
 

Hi all,

While checking the plane today before heading out, I was looking at the linkages in the ailerons. Unfortunately, I kinda forgot it was a particularly windy day, and didn't hold the aileron up, and it slammed down on my fingers, causing a bit of a cut.

So, my question, what daft/minor injuries have you had in an unconventional way to do with aircraft?

Neil

I stand up under the prop regularly, one day I may remember it's there!

Stepped off a wet piper wing onto the step. Foot slipped back and got a deep gash in my heel from the flap trailing edge- they are sharp!

Loads of pairs of glasses ruined in chest pockets leaning into cockpits to adjust rudder pedals.

Not holding the canopy on windy days, they slam hard on your head.

All aeroplanes bite fools ( even before the engine start)

Reaching over my head and backwards two weeks ago in an attempt to fish for the shoulder seatbelts vanished through the small hole in the recaro-style seats in an A211 Aquila (somewhat stoopid design IMHO, don't quite see the need for headrests in GA airplanes, let alone shoulder belts you have to ask nicely not to slip behind the seat) gave my shoulder a little ouch I still feel slightly today.

And of course a few times the match forehead (luckily covered by cap) vs. high wing.

May nothing worse happen :)

Silly injuries
 

Stupidest I ever did was not follow the checklist properly. In a pa-28, didn't lower flaps fully and despite the bright orange warning painted there, stepped on the flap and fell onto the stirrup/step below. Ankle is still not the same, four years later. (Simple slotted flap on that type drops freely with a little downward load. It's held up by airflow, or on the ground by a spring)

I read the checklists now.

My son, aged 4, had a broken metatarsal as a result of his foot being run over by a C152... Interesting conversation with the emergency department... He dined out on it for years.

I now wear running gloves for the a check having arrived for a few check rides having removed parts of hands on airframe.

And 1 day prior to a ski holiday I stepped confidently off the wing of an arrow at Bembridge and jammed my leg between wing and the step having missed the step entirely.

I have not forgotten the pain of that moment 6 years later and now wear appropriate shoes on all wings. The experience is not one to be repeated.

Exactly the one you did.

And I even posted about it somewhere to warn other people not to be so daft ...

One pretty scary one involved the VOR antenna on top of the tail of a Cessna 140. It was the V shaped wire type that stick out from the top of the tail pointed out and forward. I was doing the walk around and was distracted by someone asking me a question.

The result was when I turned my head back and leaned in the end of the wire poked my face about 1/2 inch below my eye. :eek:

The other one involved my transition from a type one float plane pilot

"Those float plane pilots that have yet to fall into the water"

To a type 2 float plane pilot

"Those float plane pilots who have already fallen into the water"

The result was that most of the skin was removed from my left ankle by the chine of the float as my foot went by, rapidly followed by the rest of my body. My excuse is I was distracted by the girl in the skimpy bikini :O

Islander trailing edges I have seen some crackers.

If you haven't seen them they are thin skin which ends in corrugated end to the skin without any rounding out or anything, leaving it with all intents and purposes as a crinkle cut potato cutter.

Thankfully I never did it but boy they can draw some blood!

My own was on the works machine and while standing up after checking the nose gear to makes sure the gear pin was out I brushed the pitot tube while standing up with my shoulder. Didn't think anything about.

Next approach I felt something pulling at my back and pulled my shirt. Their was a ripping feeling and then loads of fluid dribbling down my back. The Pitot was on when I had brushed it and had melted the cheap uniform shirt we had been issued with. The ripping had been the blister which was attached to the shirt coming away. Took about three months for it to heal properly.

Several cuts and bruises from Cessna flaps but my worst silly injury was to my pride. In the good old days when Compton Abbas used to stay open on Summer evenings, I landed there in a 172 with some friends for some famous cake and coffee. Being evening they let me park right next to the patio which was well populated with people enjoying the evening sunshine.

I don't know what really happened but, when I tried to get out, my upper body did all the right things but, for some reason, my feet decided to stay on board. The result was that I fell head first onto the ground. Fortunately the ground was soft and I seem to have an in built instinct to fall well and I was completely unhurt. I covered my embarrassment with lots of laughter but I wonder how many spectators went away convinced that some pilots are quite happy to fly while drunk.

I walked into the trailing edge of horizontal stabiliser of the SK76 helicopter I was about to use for a Class A night casevac. The dispersal was unlit and I just didn't realise I was so close to it. The sharp edge caught me right on the side of my eye socket and was excruciatingly painful but did no permanent damage.

But the most painful thing was pulling a heavy GPU over my own toe. It had metal wheels and weighed about 500 pounds. My toe was crushed and the pressure that developed inside it pushed off the toenail after a few days. :}

Tim
 

I have often been tempted to use a child as a wheel chock but resisted the temptation .............. At last I meet someone who as actually done so !

Wasn't me but I watched a PO once on Ark Royal. Rule one, "Thou shalt not run on the flight deck at night"!! The Sea Vixen trailing edge is bang on the nose, he was out of action for a week.

Opened the cowl on a Pitts to check the engine which hinges upwards and was happily doing so when the wind dropped and so did the cowl, with the sharp edge coming down right on my head.

I've also walked into Cessna flaps too many times (never learn) and banged my head on almost every part of a Super Cub (which on the ground I consider a death trap).

Not an injury, but who hasn't had an inadvertent shower when pre-flighting a Cessna after rain? Those corrugated ailerons hold quite a lot of water as you discover as you stand under it and pull it down during the 'free movement' check.

I have recently had an encounter with the opened baggage compartment door of a PA28 whilst stepping down from the wing. I was wearing an open anorak, which was blown behind the baggage door by a gust of wind right as I shifted my weight to put my left foot on the step below. The result being the lower right side of my nose hitting the upper edge of the (then) bloody baggage door with quite some force.

Always tell everybody to wait opening that baggage door until everyone has come out of the airplane...

Oh yes, you'd have thought I'd have learned by now, especially after draining the fuel!

being the clumsiest person in the world I have managed the following in or around a 172

1) walked into the flaps

2) the pinched fingers in the aileron thing

3) fallen off the step when checking the fuel tanks, every which way you can think of. Failed to get on the step getting up, overbalanced once up there, gone to reach for the ground with my other foot and somehow missed.

4) whilst still trying to figure out the order you do the seatbelt/seat adjust/ shut the door in, found myself hanging by my seatbelt out the door trying to reach it in order to shut it. if that clip hadn't held I would have been face first onto the concrete
5) pinched finger in the baggage door release (don't ask how!)

flying is dangerous !

Silly injuries
 

A mate of mine (a complete baldy nut hence the lack of collision warning system) once cut his head open on one of the guidance fins on a Paveway 3 during his pre flight walk round. You don't let something like that stop you though. Watching a big bomb that you've just dropped go bang is one of life's little pleasures! I should point out that this was on a training exercise in Oman before you think I'm some nutter who revels in death and destruction.
BV