Auto Landing with a locked out Spectrum
 

OK. I know this is going to sound unbelievable but I swear it's true. There were plenty of witnesses.

Last weekend at our field a fellow was flying his 35% Extra 260. After flying about 10 minutes he made the circuit and set up for a landing. He was straight and level loosing altitude when his Spectrum receiver locked out on him. He had no control and was wildly flailing on the sticks with no effect.

So what happened next?

The plane landed itself. Perfect landing without even a bounce. Stopped a little short of the barrier and just sat there idling. He still had no control so he had to walk out and use the ignition switch to kill it.

A truly incredible sight.

Oh, And the lockout was later determined to be from a low battery condition.

RE: Auto Landing with a locked out Spectrum
 

Lucky guy. Once i ran out of my battery and i crashed my tail off.

But it was old 40Mhz system.

RE: Auto Landing with a locked out Spectrum
 

He needs to buy a lottery ticket just in case.

Brian

RE: Auto Landing with a locked out Spectrum
 

He needs to count himself EXTREMELY lucky and then kick himself in the butt.[>:]

RE: Auto Landing with a locked out Spectrum
 

Being straight and level when it happened is what saved it. With a "point and shoot" plane like an Extra, if it had been in any other position we would probably be reading about how many trash bags it took to clean up the mess.

RE: Auto Landing with a locked out Spectrum
 

I bet he thanks his lucky stars. Not many folks can say they had that happen like that. Glad it went well and no one was hurt.

Kevin

RE: Auto Landing with a locked out Spectrum
 

Yup. He had inadvertently overwritten the planes setup in the radio and sat in a chair for a good hour or so setting it back up with the plane turned on for testing and such.

And now "the rest of the story"

I left out that he was about a hudred yards out and 50 ft. up when it locked out.

We warned him that he had used up all his good luck mojo for probably at least the rest of the year. Yep. Next flight he crashed his new 40 size sport flyer on it's maiden.

RE: Auto Landing with a locked out Spectrum
 

What was the cause of the crash of the 40 sizer? Was he using the same radio?

RE: Auto Landing with a locked out Spectrum
 

Forget the lottery ticket

brian

RE: Auto Landing with a locked out Spectrum
 

It sounded like he ran the battery down while resetting up the radio?

Keep in mind that when you have the Tx on, for extended periods, while programming the Tx, you can stick a 1/8" audio jack (like the one on the trainer cord) into the Trainer port on the Tx and leave the Tx power switch off. The display will power on but the RF section will remain off. This draws about 1/3 of the current you would draw when Transmitting. You just turn the Tx power switch on when you turn on the Rx switch, and turn the Tx switch off after you turn the Rx switch off.

I do as much configuring of the Tx that I can, before I need to test it with the Rx on. It saves the battery.

RE: Auto Landing with a locked out Spectrum
 

He was lucky that things locked up after he had setup a good approach. I wasn't so lucky. A few weeks back, my Ruperts Dat, a scratch built 3D plane had the receiver battery open up. I was in a slow easy left hand turn at the time and quite high. It just kept that same turn going, round and round and round, getting lower each revolution. Finally the ground reached up and grabbed it. broken wing, broken motor mount, stripped out throttle servo. One minor crack in the fueslage. I guess if I had been in the right attatude, I might have landed blind also. The complete loss of control, while the plane is flying is really scarry. Luckly in both our cases, not one or no property was dammaged. Sure makes you think though.

Don

RE: Auto Landing with a locked out Spectrum
 

Yes, he was using the same transmitter, but the low battery was the receiver battery in the Extra not the xmitter.

The cause of the .40 crash was a deadstick in a bad position and stalling it trying to get back to the strip.

RE: Auto Landing with a locked out Spectrum
 

I bought a Multiplex transmitter, the battery has always been short on power. Before I learned that, I was flying my Hobbico TwinStar one day, and the transmitter started beeping. By the time I brought the TwinStar around and got it on approach, the transmitter made a little screech and stopped transmitting. Of course, I was paying attention to the plane, and not the transmitter.

The plane was maybe 3' off the ground when the battery died, the transmitter shut off, and the plane just settled down and sat there. Sort of a clumsy landing, I thought, until I looked at the transmitter.

After that, I paid more attention to what was going on with the transmitter battery.

Best wishes,
Dave Olson

RE: Auto Landing with a locked out Spectrum
 

I had a plane all set up on final approach one day many years ago, and reached out with my thumb to bring the throttle trim to full idle. After that, i THOUGHT I was flying the plane, and ended up with a respectable landing along the edge of our runway, plane idling merrily along as it sat there. When I looked at the TX, I realized I had turned the TX off instead of pulling the throttle trim down.. so I had nothing to do with the landing other than setting up the approach!

This was an old World Engines Expert transmitter, back in the days of metal boxes and switches that stuck out the front with minimal guards, etc.

RE: Auto Landing with a locked out Spectrum
 

As the Irish say, if you're born to hang you won't drown.