What would you do
 

What would you do if your club made it mandatory for you to have a "fail-safe" gadget on all of your planes? When the club voted on it there were only 6 people at the meeting with 29 other members that weren't there that didn't get to voice their opinion. 4 of the 6 that voted on it already have it built into their computer radios.

I have 7 planes.....

I could buy a 2.4 futaba radio with it already built in for $220 but then I'd have to buy an additional receiver for the other planes at another $100 each. That's a total of $820 because of the new rule!

Or I could buy 7 fail-safe gadgets from horizon hobby at $24.95 each which would cost $179.95 with shipping and handling.

Or I could buy 1 fail-safe for $24.95 and use it for all my planes but I don't feel like transferring it from one plane to another since I fly all 7 of my planes at different times and I like keeping the wings on my planes if I can.

Or I could just find another place to fly my planes.

If I'm not mistaken the fail-safe won't even work if you are using a 6v receiver battery. It has to go to 4v before it will even kick in!

http://www.horizonhobby.com/Products...ProdID=HAN6015

What would you do?

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

As far as the failsafe not working until 4ish volts on a 6v battery, that may be true but you should still be able to control the airplane if the voltage is above 4v so the failsafe is a mute point.
If I was in your situation I would contact the other members effected by this and have everyone show up at the next meeting in an attempt to overide this decission.
If that failed I would fly somewhere else.I have alot of money already tied up in this hobby along with current ongoing cost, ie... fuel, batteries, dues, ect... In the current economy I would not want to be forced into a sudden additional expense.

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

One idea is to arrange for more club members to attend the meeting, and pass another motion deleting or amending the first one.

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

Has your club experienced incidents that probably would have been avoided if the model involved had been equipped with a throttle failsafe unit?

If the answer is no, you have a solution looking for a problem, which is not logical.

Missleman and Jim are correct: Get the general membership involved. Show up at the next meeting and pass a motion to eliminate the failsafe requirement for models that are not required to have one according to AMA rules.

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

It was brought up at the next meeting with about 10 members attending there and the main 2 that were pushing the issue said it's already been voted on and that's the way it's going to be!

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

You need to canvas all of the members personally and see if they will sign a petition to get a new vote. Either vote on the subject again or recall your officers who are probably violating your by-laws. Clubs are usually a democracy and not a dictatorship. If a true majority support the idea then you are stuck with it. When my club had a major issue to vote on we did it by mail-in cards. Mail back the card or you don't get a vote. Make sure they are mailed to someone that YOU trust to acknowledge the vote properly.

Again, WHY was it an issue in the first place.

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

No one in the club has had their batteries go dead in mid-air and there have never been any fly-a-ways! Any crashes were usually pilot error.

I've been flying for 35 years and my batteries have never gone dead one time while flying!

One guy put the fail-safe on his 1/4 scale plane to see how well it worked and his throttle stuck at 1/2 power, his ailerons went one way and his rudder went the other and was he ever upset! Luckily he was able to get the plane back to normal and land it with no mishap!

I'd hate to lose a plane on count of the fail-safe acting up like his did!

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

Are these 2 members officers of the club?
How is it they have the authority to block a motion?
If it was me and there was absolutely no way of changing it I would demand 1/2 of my membership dues returned so I can join another club because they have made it too costly and/or inconvenient to continue flying with them.
I would certainly be very vocal about it at the meeting, there would be no doubt in anyones minds where I stand.

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

You need to get a copy of the club by-laws and find out if, "We already voted so that's the way it is" really applies. Someone saying it does not make it true.

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

I would have to agree with Carrell ,Bruce and Missileman !


Why the Rule Change ?


Bob

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

There was no reason for the issue to even be brought up other than for "safety" reasons.

The 2 pushing the issue fly 37% and 40% size planes right over the neighbors house and over his property even though the neighbor has told them to stay away from his house and not fly over his property which is illegal but they ignore him!

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

I would have the officers recalled. Even if the two involved aren't officers, then that is even worse because your officers are spinless and allowing these two elitest to run the show.
What is going to happen to the club when all of the membership dries up? Look in your by-laws and see what all rules are being violated. There is no way a single person should be able to block a motion by a paying, voting member. Having said that, I figure any meeting that I miss, I should be willing to accept the consequences of the votes that take place. However, this seems like an exception, and you should get all of the membership involved. It's going to negatively affect everyone. I personally do not trust third party fail safe devices. I like the failsafe built into my rx's, but not third party devices...

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

There was a guy at our club that recently lost a plane do to the fail-safe acting up. Technology sometimes gets in the way of common sense. It would be much less expensive to mandate the use of a battery tester before each flight to check battery levels...which is common sense anyways.

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

I think they are trying to weed out the ones that don't have a computer radio or fail-safes already installed so they will have more airtime for their Big Planes!

They don't like it when smaller planes are flying while they have thier Big Ones up there!

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

What specific "fail-safe" did they require? Fail-safe is a misleading term for an aircraft. There is no "fail-safe" position for the controls. An out of control plane is an out of control plane. We can rig them to land faster, but we cannot ensure they land safely. We can rig them to stay in the air longer while we try to regain control, but its still going to come down eventually.

Some recievers can be preprogrammed to a fail position, but as we all know, there is no one postion on the controls that ensures the plane stays level. FMA sells an electronic co-pilot that will monitor the horizon and keep the plane circling level. A simple spring or rubberband can be rigged to the throttle to pull the throttle closed if the servo loses power or becomes disconnected. Using two batteries rigged in parallel with appropriate diodes can be used as a "fail-safe" for a single battery failure. The link to the item in the OP is simply a throttle positioning device, and only works in one failure mode.

I'd get the entire club to vote. There is no such thing as a rule that cannot be changed, unless you have a really screwed up set of club by-laws.

Brad

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

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RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

The truth is a failsafe really should be set to 1. shut off the engine if possible and 2. drive the plane into the ground asap.
Failsafe should never attempt to keep the plane in the air.
Failsafe is to protect spectators not your airplane.
That said, a failsafe can malfunction and cause a crash AND just because it is meant to do as I described it is certainly not foolproof and can cause problems that may not exist otherwise.

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

Can you propose a new vote or has the issue been sealed?
Does your club have a newsletter or website that it's members can read? Was anyone given advance notice about voting on the subject?
Who proposed the idea? Were they an officer of the club?
If it were me, I'd contact the other members to have them sign a petition for a new vote. A decision like that one should have been brought up to the rank and file before it was voted on. Although I understand the reasoning, the way it was implemented was in poor judgment, in my opinion. If it is mandatory then someone will have to enforce it. I would not add the devices to my planes since I could not afford it either. They would have to escort me from the field and I will file a grievance with the AMA.

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

Trying to weed out Non computer radios or 72 mhz ?
Does your Club require Spotters when multi a/c are in
the air ?

Bob

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

There is so much wrong with this that it's hard to know where to begin:

A) What is the definition of a "fail safe" gadget? PCM and 2.4Ghz receivers with fail safe modes still crash or fly away all the time. The fail safe gadget from Horizon Hobby does even less than a typical receiver's fail safe mode as it only works on the throttle channel. All of this is nice for advertising hype, but will have almost zero influence over preventing accidents or crashes. Is a dual conversion receiver a fail safe device because it provides extra layers of signal processing? Is any FM narrow band receiver a safety device because it's more reliable than wideband AM or FM?

B) Having 2 members stating that "it's already been voted on and that's the way it's going to be" is nonsense. Even if the "fail safe device" policy were made a by law of your club, even by laws can be amended and changed. If those two members are blocking a vote on changing a pet rule that only they like, somebody ought to be making motions to officially admonish them according to your clubs discipline proceedures and/or eventually looking at tossing their asses out of the club.

The reality is that you have 35 members in your club, two of them have a hard-on for "fail safe devices," and about 25 of your members just want to show up and fly and don't like coming to meetings. The two guys that are pushing the fail safe devices are probably long-time club members in positions of authority, which is why more members aren't challenging them on this "enlightened decision" of theirs.

The simple fact is, their rule is basically unenforcable. If the members tell them that they have a fail safe receiver installed, what are they going to do? Force you to let them inspect every plane you bring to the field? Even if they look inside every aircraft, anyone with a 2.4Ghz receiver or PCM receiver has a fail safe device; but how can you tell it's programmed?

If the two guys are pushing this are generally OK guys, but they've got a bug up their ass about this for some reason, and you're not going to lose half of your club members because of this rule, just tell them you have a failsafe device. If they look in your airplane and it has a standard FM receiver and somebody calls you on it, then say "well I thought the guy at the hobby store said it had a fail safe mode." They can't prove you knew it didn't have a fail safe mode and there isn't anything they could legally do to you even if they could prove it.

If you wanted to make a more obvious point of how stupid their rule is, you could buy one fail safe device from Horizon Hobby and simply velcro it or rubber band it to the outside of the fuselage of whatever you're flying at the moment. Make sure it's not hooked to anything and point to it to say, "See, there's my fail safe device. It's on my plane." You would be meeting the letter of their new rule and the whole club would be laughing at them.

If this push for fail safe gadgets had your club members all worked up over being dictated to by a couple of members and it was threatening your memership count, I'd press harder to sanction and/or remove the offending members. It sounds like most of your members don't care because they're still not showing up to meetings.

Tell them you have fail safe devices in all your planes and don't worry about it. Three months from now nobody will remember the rule was passed and two guys who made such a big deal out of this will be worrying about something else.

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

The vote has been sealed!

Newsletter but nothing mentioned about anyone voting towards the issue.

No advanced notice about the rule being voted on before the vote.

2 guys proposed it. One was an officer and the other was not. Both have the 37% to 40% size planes.

I don't trust the fail-safes period! And I beleive all the seperate fail-safes would do is run my receiver battery down faster!

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

Without attempting to hijack the thread, My personal recommendation for a fail position is throttle closed, with full up elevator and full rudder. This will place most planes into a spin. Why use a spin? You're making sure the plane remains in the same location over the field, which is hopefully safe, and you're also ensuring the plane does not gain more airspeed as its circling down to the ground. But again, its device dependent.

Safest is to perform proper pre-flights, range-checks, and exercise frequency control. And don't forget the law of unintended consequences.

Brad

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

I like it :D:):D

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

No spotters are ever used in this club!

I think they just want to feel like they have "Power" in the club since they have the large planes!

But, you NEVER see the 2 that are pushing the issue..."on the Lawn Mower all summer"!

RE: What would you do? Please read.....
 

What do you do when you are flying inverted 5 feet above the deck and all of a sudden a glitch occurs which is supposed to kick in the fail safe and your plane goes into the ground since it went back to idle with full up elevator and rudder? Total loss of your plane is what would happen!

Another reason not to use a fail safe if you ask me!