[MrMon]

By stick I meant something 2 or 3 inches in diameter. No pilot wants to hit something that big. For that matter, they really don't want to hit a human being either. There's a good chance of them going down as well.

The tip of a rotor blade is going roughly 500 mph. If it hits anything of substance, it will destroy that thing, but also damage itself. And an unbalanced rotor, which the damage will cause, is not a good thing.