I just wanted to let everyone know I bought a few Tams Fail Safes for my jets. Today I had a minor air leak I did not know about and about 5 minutes into my flight, flying my Euro Sport my gear came doun flawlessly. I can say that saved me a lot greif. The best $100.00 I ever spent. Way to go Tam keep up the good work!






Ronald R Long

I have always been curious about using the failsafe. What would ultimately do less damage...landing a Lightning gear up, or having the gear come out when doing a 175+ MPH pass? Can you imagine if a Bandit or Bobcat had the gear blow down at 200MPH? Yikes!

I'm just thinking out loud.

Beave

That is a good point. I wouls say I was going about 125 to 150 when this happened.


Ron

I am going to install these in all my planes I will let you know what happens as this occures.I have a Bandit , Ultra bandit, Euro, King Kat, F-86, Lightning and so on.


Ron

Hello Bevar,

I see your point, but would you rather 1. Replace fiberglass gear covers from the jets you mentioned, or 2. Correct under carriage damage, 3. Fill and repaint undercarriage, 4. Send in turbine for repair if any gravel or grass got ingested, 5. Most important it always pisses you off on landing when you have no gear to steer the plane once it "kisses" the ground and causes even more severe damage.

There are always 3 sides to every issue, but on this one I'm with you Ron, I am going to place an order with Cactus Flyer, he is a distributor.

My 2 cents.

PS Ron where did you fly, I went to the field and they had a pattern contest??

Ron, K,

I see your points and those are good questions. I was thinking more on the lines of a gear extension at 200MPH might cause enough of a pitch down to bury the jet...maybe.

Just wondering...

Beave

Ron, you are right, I've had these in my airplanes since they came out, great device indeed!

Kevin I went to AMPS? field today 43rd Ave and Pinacle Peak. it was pretty good. Hi Sean nice to hear from you. I just wanted to give Tams some kutos for this device it really works and I am happy I bought them.


Ron

So Beave,

What are the V Lo, VLe and VRet of the Lightning, Bandit and Bobcat?............That's obviously what we need to know!

I've seen the failsafe in action at some high speeds with no pitch down effect...............It is worth every penny IMHO.

Another benefit of the failsafe is that it won't let you screw up your gear doors when you turn on the TX with the gear switch in the wrong position.

Kevin,

We have a couple in stock. Let me know when we can get together.

Tailwinds,

John

John,

Put me down for a few more of those. I am sold. I don't worry about gear problems at all now.


Ron

Yo Ron
Did the tires stay on ??????

Semper Fi
Joe

Yes and it flew sooooooooooo sweet got me some spares just in case though


Ron

Just installed a third failsafe, and wouldn't be without it. It has kicked in a couple of times...once we forgot to top up the air, and it wouldn't let the gear retract (good thing!!!) and a couple turning-on-the-transmitter-with-the-gear-swicth-up occurences............

I cannot get my failsafes to work on 2.4ghz. They work fine on 35Mhz?
When the failsafe kicks in, the gear doors open, but the retracts do not come down. It is like it does not kick in long enough to allow both doors & retracts to work.
I am using double jetronic valves & a jetronic door sequencer.

The Jetronic sequencer was acting up at a recent show, it was swapped out for a new one...did not work any better. Come to find out that this has been a common problem on 2.4 with the electronic sequencer's. I wish I knew how to explain in detail why, but it has something to do with the electronic signature or something way too technical for me to explain. All I know is that it is not just Jetronics either, but that is the only one that I have had direct contact with. I have a JMP sequencer on my T-33 using 2.4 and it works fine, but I know that Tom Cook is working on some program changes with this product to be more 2.4 friendly.
I wish I knew more, but to make sure take out the gear fail safe and run the sequencer direct and see if it still works reliably for multiple flights. I had a few flights were it worked fine, then without any changes it would act up....really weird!
Hope this helps,
Dave

Thanks. I thought it was maybe just me. I will play around with both failsafe & sequencer when I next do an install.

Is it a Futaba FASST rx?

Hi Dave,

FWIW I found something funky with the Jet-tronic brake valve also on my 2.4 setups. I mix brakes to down elevator. If I mix at positive 100% the valve appears to work initially but then plays up but if I mix NEGATIVE 100% then all works normally. I am not sure if this has anything to do with 2.4 but I have not encountered this problem before on my 36 MHz models.

I wonder if these two issues are related.

Craig.

Hi Matt. No, It's a JR PCM 9X2 with the XPS 2.4 sysyem. It all works fine if I remove the failsafe. There must be some incompatability between the sequencer & the failsafe at 2.4Ghz. Unless I am doing something wrong. I remember seeing something about this on RCU some time ago where Tam posted a possible fix. I remember trying it at the time, but it did not work for me. Maybe it works on Spectrum 2.4Ghz?

Sorry no help from me. Horst Lenertz (Jettronics) is chasing down trouble with the signal level (voltage) used on the FASST receivers. Never seen this issue with JR.

Good luck tracking it down.

BTW if Tam can't fix it, sue him.

Matt. I can just see the legal letter. My client crashed his $20,000 jet because your product was advertised as failsafe & it failed. Please send the cash by return of post.
No, I think Tam has enough worries because some idiot crashed his jet & is looking for someone to pay.

Owwwwwwcchhh !!!

I know that Tam's gear failsafe works with 2.4, but the feature of turning the radio on with the gear switch in the up position and the gear NOT retracting does not work. The air pressure fail safe function (the most important in my opinion) works just fine. However, pair that up with an electronic sequencer, and 2.4, and you are going to have some problems. The jet that I was flying and had problems with the jetronic/2.4 did not have a gear fail safe. I flew 15 flights with this setup so it does work, but lots of head scratching and a couple of flights with the gear down, re-programming the sequencer....ect. The weird thing is that it would malfunction less if you held both buttons down on the sequencer while turning on the plane. Yeah I know, crazy...but it worked.

Plug it into a powerbox or similar if you can and you'll be good to go again. 5.9v will go to it instead of the 2.7v-3v range that seems common with the new 2.4ghz Receivers

Rgds,
Mark

Hi Mark,

Yes that was what i was referring to. The core voltage is down to 2.7 volts in the FASST I guess. I would go down to 5.2 volts on the reg myself.