RE: PPM, PCM ?
Sonnich,
Since moving to jets, helis, and giant scale stuff, I have made it a policy to never again fly PPM (except in my little electrics, but I have a PCM RX in my little TRex electric heli). The PCM stuff is much more bullet proof and having the failsafe option to shutdown the turbine is a must (although you can get add-on stuff to do that with PPM). The PCM transmission/reception mechanism is inherently so much more noise resistant that it can fly in noise environments where PPM is unflyable (been there and seen it). If you really had a lockout on your PCM radio (i.e., it wasn't a power failure, total RX failure, etc.) then I can almost guarantee you that you wouldn't have been able to fly it at all with PPM. Also, in my experience, the failure mode with PPM, is AT BEST, a series of fast glitches followed by a total loss of control - all so fast that you couldn't have done anything but watch anyway, just like you did with PCM...
Bob