WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A New Zealand man was decapitated in front of his family while taking a home-made hovercraft on a test run, according to reports Wednesday.Like chocolate and peanut butter, "homemade hovercraft" and "decapitated" seem to go well together. I mean, I feel bad for the family - they got to watch their loved one literally lose his head over a toy - but not for the recently shortened victim. When dealing with power equipment, vehicles, etc., one must exercise the utmost of care. While only the folks that were there know exactly what happened, obviously something went wrong - something that most likely could have been prevented with additional measures.
Police said the 40-year-old, whose name has not been released, died instantly when he was struck by a propeller blade while using the hovercraft at Muriwai beach, west of Auckland, on Sunday, the New Zealand Herald reported.
Okay, further investigation yields more proof of dumbassery - he was operating the hovercraft without guards over the fans. Now, I've got a couple old steel ventilation fans at home, and I wouldn't operate one without a guard in place - too much of a likelihood of someone sticking their fingers in the blades for my liking. I can't imagine operating a hovercraft without something pretty substantial covering the blades.
In any case, one thing is irrefutable - this guy sure doesn't have a good head on his shoulders...
That is all.
8 comments:
You Sir.. are bringing alot of snark for a Friday :)
His hovercraft was full of eels, perhaps?
Sorry Jay; as written, the follow-up story is useless BS.
The inlet screens on the ducted fans are to keep objects out of the turning blades only (commonly called Foreign Object Damage - FOD). Mostly because the operator/passenger(s) are seated immediately forward of the intake.
No air duct or screen material will stop a slung blade from flying away from the propeller hub. And, the direction a blade travels post-seperation depends in large part on what caused the propeller material to fail in operation. Stress fractures rarely break cleanly for instance. A piece of paper has been known to cause engine failure in more traditional aircraft engine design. It seems likely to me that a small, unnoticed object FOD'd the blades, and ducted fans a notorious for being even more suseptable to catastrophic damage than ordinary propeller-driving engines.
I'm actually kinda surprised the resulting rotational imbalance didn't cause the entire prop and motor assembly to violently complete the dis-assembly process immediately afterwards and cause death/injury to all and sundry in the area. The bystanders were incredably lucky IMO.
Judging from this story, it's actually sort of reassuring to see first hand that the degree of ignorance and laziness apparent in most political journalism is actually a result of general incompetence rather than considered intent.
Jay
You can't add this one to the DGC count as four .380 rounds weren't enough to do the job apparently but thought you'd like the story at least
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/armed-diner-shoots-robbery-suspect-outside-st-petersburg-applebees/1184869
Well, he lost his head in more than one way... Sad the family had to witness it
WV= bang That was the last thing he heard.
And this is why amateur engineers and high-speed fans do not mix. It only took off the back of his head, so he wasn't any shorter. Death may not have been what most would consider 'instantaneous'.
It had worked well previously, but if you don't plan for catastrophic failure (and where those blades will go if it does) (and if you can put anything that would stop them in without turning the craft into a paperweight), this is the stuff that happens.
That said, Air Force test pilots die and they have some of the best engineers and budgets out there. Life is not without risks, but how you perform your risk management is up to you.
Of course, the Classics foretold this:
Dr. Evil: Scott, I want you to meet daddy's nemesis, Austin Powers
Scott Evil: What? Are you feeding him? Why don't you just kill him?
Dr. Evil: I have an even better idea. I'm going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.
See? Worked this time.
And he can't even be considered a Darwin Award winner, because he had already bred.
Post a Comment