A few months back I had a crash. Was doing upright backwards stall turns with 2 or 3 pirouetts at the top of the stall. The model was descending very quickly and I lost orientation briefly. Tried to save it myself. In a panic I activated the Spirit Rescue Acro. The heli pilled into the ground with a tail down 45° angle. At the time I thought it was strangle but just chaulked it up to me hitting the switch too late.

Recently on a completely different model I had a similar experience. Honestly can't remember what I was practicing or position of the heli at this time. But when I activated the Spirit Sabilization Acro the heli leveled the disk on the Aileron axis but on the Elevator axis it had a 45° tail down additude. Exactly similar to how I remember the pervious crash happening. Luckily I was high enough and quick enough with flipping the switch off that I was able to save it myself and land. Gathered my composure and lifted off. Tested the Rescue with same result. I tried Rescue Auto, Rescue Acro, Rescue Stabilization Acro. Yes I have all 3 of these programmed in all on seperate switches by channel. I landed and carried the heli back to the pits for inspection. Everything checked out ok. Plugged in a new battery. Lifted off and first thing was get high and check the Rescue. It worked as it should. Haven't had that experience again after several flights.

Now I make a point of when I lift off, first thing is to check the response when Rescue is activated.

Is there maybe something happening when the battery is plugged in and the unit is initializing?
Possibly external forces like wind just at the crucial moment the sensors are powered up?

This similar result was on 2 completely different models, both have the Spirit GT and programmed the same. So doubtfull it's a vibration or mechanical issue, but not ruling it out.

During initialization model should be as still as possible.

The issue will not develop at the beginning but during flight - at least if your base settings are not wrong. So preflight check will not show anything odd unfortunately.
For example HobbyWing ESC fan will not cause any visible problems at the bench testing, but will make Rescue impresice in many cases and in these cases only after more complex maneuvers.

This is described at our page too:
http://manual.spirit-system.com/index.p ... ise_Rescue

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Spirit System developer

Zex,
I understand what you’re saying about vibrations, however it seems in my case at least and possibly others , vibrations were well within tolerance.
I think what happened to me was indeed a glitch in the unit itself . I will contact Helidirect and ask to have it warrantied .
I think that it would be good to for you to resolve the issue so the helicopter doesn’t pack into the dirt destroying the model when rescue is activated. I’m not sure if that means rescue is inhibited with high vibrations or other issues arise . Maybe lock out the feature and have the unit beep or something letting the pilot know there is an issue and rescue is inhibited.
I personally feel that the rescue features and especially the hard deck / rescue auto are fantastic ideas and the major sales point for the spirit GT ,but if they actually do more harm than good I think that the word will get out they can’t be trusted .

Hello,

it is also possibility. However you can be assured it is not any kind of software glitch.
Our rescue is well proven, actually the most proven rescue from any available unit at the market. Since there is nothing that could wear the unit is the last thing that could fail (unlike any mechanical rotating parts).
In any case we are doing testing of each unit for free if you can ship it to us. For sure we can never know if something will fail (but I can share that the units that were really bad in quantity were 10 or less within 15 years). So probability is almost close to zero. But one never know and there is really chance it could become faulty.

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Spirit System developer

Yes understand and I am very deliberate amount making sure the model is very still and stationary during the initialization process. I always even wait 2 full seconds after the swash movement before even touching the heli and putting canopy back on.

1 model is using a HW 120a V4 and the other an Align 100a. Neither of them have the fan even installed as I am aware of the issue with these fans.

The second instance I mention was not a hard Manoeuvre. I am sure of that as I only engaged the Rescue Stabilization Acro. More than likely practicing inverted flight.

Both models have 100s of flights without issue. But there was a duplicate anomaly with both seperate FBL units that only happened once per unit which seems strange. They both are currently flyable and haven't had that problem since. They are both on the current version 3.7.0

Since I am not alone, hence this thread, something is going on. Unsure what that is.

Don't get me wrong I Love the Spirit GT. They are great, intuitive, easy to setup and adjust. Even for a relatively newbe like myself with only 3.5 years in the hobby.

Not on here to complain and wasn't even going to post anything, until I came across this thread. Just sharing my similar experience.

Rescue has not changed in any way for sevaral years in our firmware.
Please note our FBL units are used by 100th of thousands around the world daily. So there is high chance same problem will happen to more people. We understand it could be very frustrating, but first I recommend to do what is written at our web page I sent the link. You will find solution will work for 99,999% pilots.
There you can find all reasons why this can happen.

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Spirit System developer

Zex,
I just spoke with Patrick at helidirect . They will only exchange the unit for up to 30 days after purchase ( purchased 1/9/24) and said that I would have to get you to honor the 1 year warranty.
I just want to make sure the unit is ok and won’t put my heli in the dirt next time I activate rescue . He said that if you authorize it they could send me a new unit and you could send them a unit on PO . Then I could ship you this unit for testing, that way I would have a unit I could quickly reinstall and be able to fly the remainder of our short flying season here In Minnesota. I’m afraid if I send it in to you for testing/ repairs that the process will take the rest of my flying season .
Please advise next steps , I’m also happy to email you directly if you prefer.
Respectfully,
Driveline651

I have a hypothesis
after flying and doing stunts
if helicopter is found only in a certain inclination the rescue fails.
how in this video (0.52 seconds)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBg9e6Z1XEg
see attached image

my hypothesis is this. (rescue normal)
If helicopter it has the blades towards the ground puts the blades towards the sky and after the helicopter goes high.
If the blades are pointed at the sky the helicopter goes high.
When the spirit understands if helicopter is inverted or if it is not reversed...when helicopter is tilted at 90 degrees(random number why i I don't know the degrees where it is at the limit between inverted flight and normal flight) maybe he can't understand if it is reversed or if it's normal.
For example in the video the helicopter it's reversed of aileron of about 45 degrees.
Maybe only when the helicopter it is tilted at 45 degrees problems are encountered.
My is one hypothesis.

Rescue algorithm works in a different way. You can read at the linked page you can make Rescue/Stabilisation very precise with Stabi Correction (it could help with very complex maneuvers). There are 3 different modes you can set. Each has different benefits. So please read the linked page.

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Spirit System developer

All our products have 2 year warranty. Additionally we are replacing all units for new with 50% discount if damaged by pilot. And of course warranty repairs are for free.
Inspection could take just few days. If you wish to ship by express it can be back with you in one week. But shipping would be covered by you.

However I really recommend to read the linked page, this can save your time and money. Have you performed vibration measurement with Spectrum Analysis tool (with tail blades on)? Checking vibration by hand or even eye has no meaning unfortunately.

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Spirit System developer