Originally Posted by
lightningmcnulty
Also no part of me believes that many/any lockouts are caused by TX antenna orientation, I believe that most "lockouts" are caused by, in this order
1 the pilot lying to everybody to cover his/her mistake, this is by far the biggest one, its a great excuse for those who can't admit their mistakes.
2 poorly maintained equipment (so many people use crashed equipment without proper inspection, spill fluid on rx's etc)
3 poorly installed equipment (bad wiring, general mistakes with connections/selection of supporting equipment)
4 poorly positioned equipment in the airplane
5 cheap equipment, its important to remember that its not impossible for that cheap steering servo you installed to cost you your plane!
this is just what I have observed, I have defiantly seen equipment failures and almost unavoidable accidents but I do think that most crashes can be accounted for by one of the above, also I know that everyone here who flys at a busy field all know that its the same people week in week out who experience "lockouts"
I like your list. Just add poorly designed, maintained, and installed electric systems - Such as 1100 mAh 4-cell NiMh receiver packs on planes with numerous servos, high power servos, or both.
However, one day my DX8 alarmed on telemetry data and I noticed that I had a frame loss (far less of a problem than a hold). At that point I noticed that I was holding my transmitter pointed toward the ground (as someone else in the thread mentioned that we need to avoid doing) and even though the antenna was properly positioned, the angle I was holding my transmitter left the antenna tip pointing towards my aircraft. I thought that was interesting and tried a little test. I flew my plane a little higher - to give me plenty of recovery time - and purposefully pointed my antenna tip towards the plane and then away. I found that the only way I could induce a frame loss was by pointing the antenna tip toward the plane. It definitely makes a difference.
Paul