Well, I'll try not to bore you with comments about how great my sponsor's stuff is, but I have not had a single issue in 3 years and over 900 turbine flights with PCM equipment.

I truly suspect that many so-called "PCM Locks" are battery or power system failures. I truly wish more people would use redundant systems in these models. I have no way of saying for sure what happened to your friends model, but it could have been a battery failure.

Another PCM issue is the use of fail-safe. Too many are simply leaving things set to "hold" rather then programming something into fail-safe. My models are set to idle, in the case of the P-120, the shut-off procedure, and a little up-elevator. The elevator is not there to try to save the model, rather to let me see a visual cue that the model did go into fail-safe. If you don't do that, then you may never know of any problems until the situation deteriates to the point where you do have an extended hold.

I much prefer the ability of PCM to do some programmed thing if it loses link then some scattered control movement.