Seatbelts & broken necks.

Birdy, I worked an aid unit for 35 years, I can tell you for certain that even low speed accident cause severe neck injuries. To reduce whip lash your neck needs to return to a neutral position, similar to the head rest on a car seat. Being secured in a lap and shoulder harness should limit the forward travel, which would help reduce the rearward travel of the neck.

Russ Hobbs said:

To reduce whip lash your neck needs to return to a neutral position, similar to the head rest on a car seat. Being secured in a lap and shoulder harness should limit the forward travel, which would help reduce the rearward travel of the neck.

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I second Russ.

And just my two cents from own experience.
On impact one of the tasks which seat belts&harness serve for - to keep crew bodies from reaching other objects, both belonging to aircraft and outer. Shoulder harness makes this job while lap belt only keeps the body in it's place. Dirty humour from our pilots: "He sat like alive".
One of possible damages to pilot is reaching the stick by his chest and instrument panel by his head. Guess which harness setup makes it safer. In 99 I was involved in a flying boat crash fallen from the sky nose vertical down in a lake. Sure we (two on board) had no chance in case of collision with ground, water gave this chance. We had 3-point harness and no health damage less one big bump on PIC's forehead - he didn't like (before that story) to tighten belts and reached the windshield on impact. One month later I lost my friend who died in similar crash. He has lap belt only and died after his head was broken to instrument panel.
In case of gyro shoulder harness also can prevent pilot's body&head to reach other object and decreases the risk that pilot is reached by bent rotor or whatever else.

The only crash I have seen was an engine out after a steep take off.Had lack of speed and rotor revs. The gyro came down verticly from about 100 feet. On impact one under carraige leg folded and threw the whole machine forcable sideways. The pilot had a lap belt and was thrown at the ground sideways. He had shoulder and chest injurys. I have often thought that if he had a 4 point harness he would not have been thrown at the ground.
Graeme

My personal experience and observations in motor racing have mede me a firm believer in full harness. I have seen some horrific accidents at very high speeds and the highest percentage of drivers nowdays walk away. It is quite simply "the more securely that you are belted in the safer you are". The spine is more able to flex forward than backward so neck injuries from forward impact are not as critical as from rearward (or whiplash). Padded headrests are a big advantage in a "Liberace" hit but though these are rare in Gyroplanes, they could still be beneficial if tumbling.
I have seen an accident where a pilot wearing a lap belt only somehow ended up back under the VW engine, and ended up with severe burns and a broken arm, while still belted in.

I didn't see it mention, but a simple, relatively inexpense way to lessen vertical g loading of the spine is to throw away the cheap open cell foam most kit manufactures furnish and go with the closed cell foam in three different stiffnesses such as NASA uses on the space shuttle. The claims are pretty incredible--I don't know how truthful.

Not being friviouls but if you dont crash no injury will happen.
.

Its interesting in say 2 seater crashes that we often see one person with few injuries and the other a critical or fatal yet both people were in the same aircraft. I also wonder sometimes what some of these chopper pilots were actually doing when they stuffed up or something breaks as its common knowledge that the R22's get flown outside their envelope a lot of the time when mustering and its possibly still happening where hours are being fiddled with to extend the life of high cost components.

If anyone is interested, this is the motorcycle jacket that was mentioned above
http://www.impactjackets.com/

shoulder harness attach points

shoulder harness attach points

I had attached the harness to the mast above the seat.
When the gyro rolled on its side the mast sheared off and the shoulder harness is actually what broke my arm.
I would still recommend a lap belt/shoulder harness system.
Just make sure the shoulder harness connection is below the motor cluster plate so if the mast shears off your arm/shoulder does not go with it

ToolmanTim

Hmmmm, lotsa interesting info.
So, in a bingle where the brain bucket isnt restrained, its not the initial jerk forward that causes the neck failure, but the wip back???? Is that rite?

As for the R22 stack with Rob's neck Brian, they had FINISHED mustern, and had just tookn off to go home wen the machine lost lift/power. Only option appeared to be a slowish 'run on' landing, and the left skid 'bit' just before theyd stoped and it nosed over.
Hardly reckless.
Just rotten luck.
Real rotten.

shoulder harness

shoulder harness

I do have some beliefs of my own...about 5 years ago when learning to fly my gyro, I got off the ground for the first time and froze...I lost control and hit the ground at about 50mph under full power. The initial impact broke off the front wheel causing the front keel to dig in- the gyro flipped over with the rotors snapping off the mast and the engine grinding off the prop to their base. I remember everything except when I hit the ground, eveything else was a blur unti everything and me stopped moving. The gyro was pretty much destroyed. I was thrown out because the seat belt bracket under the seat broke. It was something I never want to experience again, here are my minor injuries:
I had huge bruises where the seat belt was, my legs were bruised on the inside as I probably hit the front pod while going forward. I didn't break anything but was real sore everywhere! I had on a leather jacket that was cut up but it kept me from getting road rash- the back of the helmet was wiped by the muffler. It took me a year to even get back into a gyro... period.
The gyro was in a pile upsidedown- I was just to the side close to the front.
I would and will never mount any kind of belt or seat to the mast- its the first thing to snap and whatever is attached to it will go with it. I would have been twisted up in belts in the pile if I had a harness. Race cars have a harness because there is a cage around you and they keep you inside the cage- try putting a harness on a motorcycle.
I was also fortunate the seat tank did not leak- again, would you want to be strapped to a gas tank?
In my opinion, there is no reason you should ever hit the ground hard enough to cause damage unless there is a catastrophic failure of a critical part and even then a harness would do nothing for the hard inpact. Most accidents are caused by pilot error- flying fast,too close to the ground or doing the same with a down wind turn or under the power curve, trying to force a take off shorter than whats safe- look at a lot of videos of crashes- usually doing something risky, so I feel flying safe is way more important than using a full harness.