My radio has a Fail-Safe so that if the rx loses signal it can set the throttle to a predetermined position. I cannot decide what is the best throttle position to set for the fail-safe.

-Do I want to set a medium-low throttle setting so that the plane will keep flying as long as possible and I might be able to eventually restore the signal and recover the plane? Assuming the plane is not pointing down when it loses signal or else this would lead to a spectacular crash.
-Do I want to set it to idle speed, so that the plane is going to coming down, but if I restore the signal before it hits the ground I might be able to fly away and land undamaged?
-Do I want it to assume the signal is unlikely to be restored, kill the engine and hope that the crash only destroys the airplane?

What are your thoughts regarding which option is best?

a high idle is good

IMO you need to set it for minimum or to kill the engine. Jets are REQUIRED to kill the engine upon signal loss. If you can't control it you MUST assume the worst (battery or switch or RX failure) and that you will NOT regain control. Therefore you want the plane to come down ASAP but with the controls at a neutral position. Any control that is input will be there until the crash. Please note that some failures, like loss of battery or switch, will not allow failsafe to work because power is required. So you want to hope it is just a signal loss.

High idle will increase the distance your plane will fly before impact and possibly allow the plane to fly into more inhabited areas and injure someone. Sacrifice the plane.

Closed, off, killed!!! An engine spinning the prop, blade, slice and dice can float into A crowd and still do A lot of damage to flesh even at A low idle. Fail safe is designed to save people, not A plane.

I think it depends on your flying area. My area is at a lake, and we have lots of forested area around our field. I set mine for idle just in case I get it back, and that if I don't it will end up hitting a tree long before it gets to a populated area.

I agree with Gray Beard. Kill the engine. The plane is replaceable, people are not.

thanks guys!

Failsafe is design to help save people, property, and the plane. Of course, their importance is in the same order. Throttle failsafe should always be set to idle or engine kill. For me personally, it depends on the plane and environment in which it is being flown, but 99% of the time it is low idle.

Some may also say that when in failsafe, the controls should all be put hard over, which would cause the plane to enter a violent snap and then enter a spin, i.e. suicide. Theory is the plane will destroy itself pretty close to the overfly area, which should be safe to crash in. I personally find that a little harsh for the flying site environment I typically fly at and me personally due to my experience of actually entering failsafe before, but I offer it as an option you may wish to consider.

I don't buy some of the reasons posted for failsafe if onboard systems fail then failsafe probably wouldn't have worked with the possible exception of a low battery failsafe assuming the RX supports that function. Jets technically are not required to kill the engine upon signal loss, they are required via the AMA to kill within 2 seconds of being in failsafe. Minor point, but there is a difference, and I can see a good reason for the delayed engine off in a lot of situations besides jets. It is too bad most fail safe systems cannot generally be programmed to move to position 1 for a few seconds, then to position 2 if signal is not restored.

What are some recommended/suggested fail safe settings for the other controls? I have not yet setup my fail safe as I don't know if I should put in up elevator, down elevator, etc.

I think low idle makes the most sense, at least for my flying area, for throttle.

Since you don't know what attitude the plane will be in when the failure occurs (upright, banked, mid loop or inverted) I'd suggest simple all controls neutral. Anything will have good/bad possibilities depending on many factors. There is no good way to watch a plane die. [:@] Just try to enjoy the view? And hope you regain control enough to land. Don't stop moving the sticks until impact.

GA, pretty much what Bruce said and for you I would say engine off and controls to neutral. A lot of my flying has been at IMAA events with huge crowds of spectators, I don't compete but I go to A lot of IMAC and racing events. For me flying out at the lake bed it's no big deal at all but flying anyplace there are people is another story. At A pattern event there are spectators and A full pit area, if you loose the engine and then regain signal for one reason or another then you are just dead stick. Just better to be safe the sorry. I have seen big planes go completely out of control, mostly without fail safe, sometimes it would have helped, other times not at all.

It also depends upon your plane's design.

With a high dihedral trainer, I would set the elevator for the nose slightly nose up.

That way the plane will right itself, and may even land safely on it's own.

With a flat winged plane, neutral controls is about as good as it gets.

Thanks guys.

Graybeard, good point. My local field is pretty secluded, but there are definitely people at the pattern events, so throttle kill, or at least low, low throttle is definitely the way to go.

I personally think that a fail safe should dump the plane as soon as possible. You seldom will loose control over people, pits, etc, but loss of control may end up there. If the radio isn't talking, fail save should be sticks in the corner and get it down fast. Fail save isn't going to save a plane, so give up on that idea.

We had two incidents at our field over that last couple weeks. The first was one of our guys was wringing out his Tiger 60 and waited a bit to long to pull out of a spin. We have a stock pond and an embankment then a drop of about 30 to 40 ft down to a Vineyard behind our field. His plane went down below the line of sight and then hit the roof over a big disel pump shed for the vineyards. The amount of damage to the roof was astounding. Photo below. Thinking of what the carnage might have been if it went into the pits, well it just isn't a happy though. If you have a signal loss, dump the plane as close as you can to where it's at.

The second was my Ruperts Dad just a week later. I was just doing some stuff you do on the trainer, slow figure eights and such. When I went to straighten out after a big easy turn, nothing. Absolutely nothing. We handed the TX around, turned it off, turned it on, nothing would talk to the plane which continuing on its big slow easy turn. Round and round and round it went for several minutes. The wind was causing it to drift to the left along the runway, and it was loosing about 5 to 10 ft elevation per revolution. About four of the turns took it right over the pump house that our guy hit the week before. If it had enough height, the next obsticle was the local comunity college. Luckly, it lost enough altitude to crash on the outer embankment of the pond. More than once during this event, I wished I had my shotgun with me, I wold have shot it down. I wanted that plane down on the ground, in any condition. The problem turned out to be a tab on the RX battery let loose, shutting down the power, so there was no power to the receiver. Fail save would not have made any difference in this flight as there was no power to set the plane up for a controled crash.

Setting your plane up with fail safe to try to maintain a flight, is pure foolishness in my mind. It is not going to come down damage free, and if you do happen to be so unlucky to have failsafe keep it flying you to stand there and wonder where it is finally going to come down and what, or who, it will crash into. Shut it down and force a crash to get it down.

Don

Fail safe is just A helping tool, not A cure all. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Bruce pointed out that you don't know in advance at what attitude your plane is going to be in at any given moment or where it is pointing at time of signal loss. As long as the engine is shut down everything else is A mute point. I only set my throttle to kill the engine, all else will take care of itself. I have seen planes get loose from the pilot and go into the pits and end up in the spectators area, pilot error, fail safe never figured into it. I have seen A giant 120 inch bipe loose signal and do loops forever while being pushed by the wind towards A fuel storage site, fail safe never kicked in. It is only A help thing and nothing to be counted on, if you have it use it, if you don't then don't worry about it.

I have a Futuba T7C so unfortunately Fail-Safe only operates the throttle, but I do like the idea about having fail-safe put the plane into a spin and go as straight down as possible.

"...I do like the idea about having fail-safe put the plane into a spin and go as straight down as possible." - Yes, that is the general idea and part of me agrees completely with that. However, the only time's I've ever gone into failsafe, I was able to recover and land safely (set to idle and neutral or hold on surfaces.) Had my controls been hard over or engine off, they plane would have most likely been destroyed. So I have mixed feelings on this one. I certainly don't want to injure anyone no destroy their property, but then again I don't want my planes destroyed for nothing. I guess I'd make the point others have made in that the vast majority or crashes that that had the potential to injure peeps or property were either pilot error or failures failsafe would not have prevented, even with the spin inputs. Hard decision to set a plane to suicide when odds are a more reasonable (idle down or engine off only) failsafe setting isn't much more dangerous. Venue and plane type may cause the scale to tip one way or the other. It is all simple risk analysis. What price is worth paying to reduce the odds of X by z%.

I always set neutral control surfaces and idle. I have had a plane go into fail safe before. When I got it back I was able to keep flying. Had it killed the engine I would have lost the plane or at least set it down in a bad spot. This was however a 60 size plane. If I had something with a DA-150 I would let it kill the engine. I have heard of people setting a slow turn with slight up elev. The way I fly the plane is inverted or knife edge a lot of time. This setting would stick it in a hurry. If your a sport flyer this may be OK. When mine went into fail safe it came back in less a second so it would not have been a big deal either way I guess.

David