No I don't need to narrow it down. It would be fun to hear about your battle wounds, no matter how many.
I wonder what pilot has the most pilot-ey scars all over him or her. Could be cute, or - the planes could be trying to tell them to perhaps stop flying.
Oh lordy, that'd be a long post! I don't know if I could even remember them all.
I can't even begin to count the number of times I bashed my skull on various Cessna products. Especially 08D. It's the POS red one I have the picture of below. It was the only plane we had with a STOL kit on it. I got pretty good at avoiding wings and static wicks without looking, until we got that ugly monstrosity. It's like it was reaching down to punish me.
4 years working the line, I washing a LOT of airplanes. I learned the hard way that, when sliding around under a plane on a mechanic's creeper, you keep your head DOWN on the headrest. Feel where you're going, don't look, keep your head down! Almost took a Com antenna off with my head. Did take off an ADF antenna with my knee. Oh, and when you stand up from the creeper, make SURE you know where the prop is!
I still have the scar on my right index finger from washing the ****ing 421. I don't remember what I did (I think I caught it either on an exhaust pipe or part of the flap track...both were notoriously hazardous), but I sliced my finger open, about an inch cut, to the bone. I uses two Q-Tips with the cotton cut of as a splint, wrapped it in about 3inches of tissue and scotch tape and got back to washing. I made somebody else handle the solvent, though.
Ahhh the 1900...I LOVED that plane; I don't think it loved me. I could walk under the wing standing up as long as I was out near the tip. But get too close to the wing tip and there's the drain spout for the fuel tank overflow chamber, complete with a tapered (aka sharpened) tip. Only have to make that mistake once (or three times) to not want to do it again. It was especially bad in the winter when we were wearing our wheel caps...those things, I think, were designed to MAKE you brain yourself on stuff.
Another fun trait of the 1900 - with most turbo-props, when you shut them down you leave the props in "feather." (See the second picture of the 1900...blades are parallel with the fuselage). This is good for the engines, bad for the pilots. With the props feathered they are REALLY hard to see if you walk up to the plane at the wrong angle (really, any angle). We were supposed to leave the props so they were forming an "X", that way the lower blade is below the waist (and easier to see) and the upper blade was above your head. If you forget and leave them in the "+" position...it looked like I had a lobotomy with the mark straight across my forehead.
On the Q-400 (1st cockpit photo), I could stand up in the cabin, even with my (stupid) hat on. More importantly, I could walk almost all the way into the cockpit without ducking (the cockpit door closed flush against the ceiling). On the Saab 340 (second cockpit photo), however, I can't stand in the cabin, so my head is always bowed. Add to that the 3 inch metal flashing at the entrance to the cockpit. PLUS the (stupid) hat blocking my view. Lets just say the metal wins every time.
And the stairs on the Saab...stupid stairs. They're metal and fold out from the side of the plane. But to fit in the door, they have to fold in half. So when you extend them, there's a fairly large pinch point on both handrails. Ask me how I know.
The seats on my current plane are a bit narrow (as is the whole cockpit). Well, on one side of the seat is the hand pump handle for the emergency gear extension. It can either be stowed so it pokes you in the butt cheek, or so it pokes you in the thigh. Your choice. But no other options (like keeping it the hell out of the way). On the other side of the seat is the up-down adjustment handle for the seat itself. If you have the seat moved all the way up, it's out of the way. But if I do that, I'd need to cut the top 6 inches of my head off. With the seal all the way down, it jabs into your leg. After a long week, I end up with bruises on BOTH legs, thanks to those things.
I'm sure that's only just scratching the surface (so to speak) of all the ways I've hurt myself with airplanes!
