Fail-safe settings for control surfaces

[Paul Horan]

Rick,
    My Prophecy went into failsafe (idle and hold for all other channels) and came out after about a second ( it seemed like an hour ).  I suspect interference but was not able to find any one month later using the district 6 scanner.
Paul
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Rick Kent 
  To: discussion at nsrca.org 
  Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 9:08 AM
  Subject: Re: Fail-safe settings for control surfaces


        It would be interesting to see statistics on how often a plane comes out of failsafe and the pilot regains control before meeting with Mother Earth. It's never happened for me, but admittedly, I don't use the feature often. Had two sport airplanes go into lockout when I did use it, and I watched both spin in.
        I agree a spin recovery isn't the easiest thing to execute down low when you're in a panic, but I'd venture to say it would buy you more time than being in a vertical dive while in lockout would--IF the receiver recovers signal in time. I think it just comes down to dumb luck really, in what attitude/altitude the plane is in when the lockout occurs. The question is what are the odds that your plane would only go into lockout in level flight vs. the middle of a snap, roll, inverted dive, etc. Assuming worst case scenario, i.e., no signal recovery, the spin at least puts the plane back on the field so you can find it, and hopefully the spin would serve to somewhat lessen the descent speed at impact. Maybe a flat spin would be better in that regard.

        My luck with such things dictates that it doesn't really matter what I plan for--the plane's going in, and hard.

        Rick
       
       
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