Fail-safe settings for control surfaces

[Rick Kent]

You're one of the luckier ones then. What was the plane's attitude at the
time of lockout?
Point to ponder: Do you think you'd have noticed that "I ain't got it"
revelation sooner with the surfaces set to hold or set to a spin? The engine
throttle-back could be misconstrued  as a flameout, so I don't think that's
too reliable an indicator of lockout by itself.
Just curious. I would think it depends what you were doing with the controls
at the time of lockout.

Rick

 
-------Original Message-------
 
From: discussion at nsrca.org
Date: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 12:28:33 PM
To: discussion at nsrca.org
Subject: Re: Fail-safe settings for control surfaces
 
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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