Properly clear of the prop?

Close calls
Mar 28, 2014

How many times have we been told ‘treat every propeller as if it is live’?

Learning how to be a bush pilot in the Northern Territory, I was shown how to handle a propeller with due care.

I was also shown how to ‘hand start’ an engine should the need ever arise. Good stuff!

Many years later, having never hand swung a prop to start an engine,
or had an engine fire up unexpectedly,
I came within a whisker of being ‘sliced and diced’.

I clearly missed that part of the checklist on shutdown and before starting the pre-flight for the next day’s trip.

The friend I had been visiting came out to the airstrip and was filming my pre-flight in preparation for a close-up shot of takeoff.

What Richard saw shocked him almost as much as it did me.

As I checked the propeller’s leading edges for stone damage and pulled one blade through compression, the engine fired!

I felt the blade just graze my forearm and narrowly miss my head.

Not enough to break any skin or leave a mark, but enough for me to feel the proximity of the blade.

My reaction is obvious from the video clip. I ran!

Finally, every propeller can potentially bite. Make sure you never have any body parts (or anyone else’s) in the arc of a propeller. Stand clear and be ready to jump away should the engine fire up.

I attribute my miraculous escape to the subliminal residue of the training I had received many years ago that just made me wary of any propeller.

However it was also something of a miracle that day.