ORIGINAL: piethein
Hello All,
Some time ago, I read about a suggestion for Failsafe, I think it was from Large Models Association or similar. This suggestion had all control surfaces to go to full deflection and to either idle or kill the engine. THis would kill the speed from the model. Also this would lead to a loss of model in many cases, but I would rather loose my plane than someone to loose his life in this case.
I would like to know if some other suggestions have been around for a good failsafe to kill the speed from the model.
BR,
Jussi
Jussi,
AMA Experimental Class aircraft for many many years...until just recently were required to have a full fail-safe system which would kill the engine and deflect all flight surfaces to the max... to effect a snap roll engine out... so the aircraft would not be able to wander into a crowd. Rather it would basically stop flying and screw itself in ASAP!
As I have said before I believe this should be a requirement for all model aircraft weighting over 20 lbs. I have been flying my turbine powered Jets with this fail-safe setup for several years.
While a member of the Denver Airshow Team throughout the 90's and flying at many full scale airshows we always had fail-safes set for full snap-roll deflection... as I recall we had one or two radio failures over a ten year period of time and in each case the airplane just screwed itself in out in a safe flight zone.
If you've ever been at the controls of an model airplane that has locked up, with only the factory default HOLD fail-safe settings, you'll understand why this should be a requirement.
In court when the prosecutor asks you... did you do all you could to avoid an accident? What would your answer be?
Lee H. DeMary
AMA 36099