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<DIV>Hi Rick</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Thanks for your comments as I believe we are in agreement.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Although the airframe may be damaged, odds are the hardware will not have
been beaten up too bad. Remember this is a slow spin, not the competition spin
we pattern types are used to. In the end, the loss of an airframe is
insignificant when compared to the possibility of injury or even death of a
fellow flyer, spectator, or passer-by. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>In my case, the TX antenna connection failed when my plane was at a
high altitude and entered into the slow spin. I watched with complete
helplessness but the fail-safe settings worked exactly as programmed and it
impacted into the RC field (slightly left of the center of the box about 90
yards out). </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Safe building & flying,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Dave</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<HR>
Rick wrote:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>It would be interesting to see statistics on how often a plane comes out of
failsafe and the pilot regains control before meeting with Mother Earth. It's
never happened for me, but admittedly, I don't use the feature often. Had
two sport airplanes go into lockout when I did use it, and I watched both spin
in.</DIV>
<DIV>I agree a spin recovery isn't the easiest thing to execute down low when
you're in a panic, but I'd venture to say it would buy you more time than being
in a vertical dive while in lockout would--IF the receiver recovers signal in
time. I think it just comes down to dumb luck really, in what attitude/altitude
the plane is in when the lockout occurs. The question is what are the odds that
your plane would only go into lockout in level flight vs. the middle of a snap,
roll, inverted dive, etc. Assuming worst case scenario, i.e., no signal
recovery, the spin at least puts the plane back on the field so you can find it,
and hopefully the spin would serve to somewhat lessen the descent speed at
impact. Maybe a flat spin would be better in that regard.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>My luck with such things dictates that it doesn't really matter what I plan
for--the plane's going in, and hard.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Rick</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV id=IncrediOriginalMessage><I>-------Original Message-------</I></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV id=receivestrings>
<DIV dir=ltr style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt" <i><B>From:</B></I> <A
href="mailto:discussion@nsrca.org">discussion@nsrca.org</A></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt" <i><B>Date:</B></I> Monday, May 16, 2005
08:05:42 PM</DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt" <i><B>To:</B></I> <A
href="mailto:discussion@nsrca.org">discussion@nsrca.org</A></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt" <i><B>Subject:</B></I> Re: Fail-safe
settings for control surfaces</DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>