WARNING Futaba FASST 2.4 Ghz Rogue sets

Alex

Please Read
Taken from the BMFA's website.

Below is a copy of an email I sent to Ripmax in the UK around 1 week ago.
Ripmax are the UK distributors for Futaba and I know they have taken immediate action. I will list actions and recommendations after the email copy.

I have to report to you a very serious problem with the Futaba FASST 6 channel system.
As you know I am a great supporter of Futaba, always have been.
I also believe that the FASST system is far better than any of the competition systems.
I have been flying the FASST for some months now and have been totally satisfied until now.
In our club there is maybe 6 sets in operation, all of which have worked perfectly on their own or with each other.
No interference issues at all.
Today I had a new member to teach to fly; he has 2 Futaba FASST 6 TXs and a trainer with 1 RX in it.
We were using the 2 TXs together on a buddy lead.
All seemed fine, I taxied the model to the take off area and was waiting for someone to land, and he was also on Futaba 6 FASST. I was standing next to him; the model was in front of me to the left, so my TX was between the model and his TX.
Suddenly the throttle opened on the trainer and it was off, I had no control, it swung around to the left and shot off into long grass (luckily), this stopped the motor.
When we returned to the bench we did a test.
On the trainer we turned off the matching TX and then the TX of the guy next to me on the flight line (we will call him man A) was switched on, and guess what? It had control of the model! We then turned on the models TX, it failed to operate or interfere with the model. We then turned off man A’s TX, the RX went to failsafe, and then 4 seconds later locked on to its own TX! We then switched on man A’s TX, it again failed to interfere with the signal. We switched off the trainers own TX and the RX went to failsafe, 4 seconds later it reconnected with man A’s TX.
The RX would connect to 2 TX’s! We then tried the second TX (belonging to the man with the trainer) the one that was used on buddy lead. Well guess what! The RX worked with this one as well! We repeated the above test with switching on the other TX’s and every time we switched off the controlling TX, 4 seconds later it would bond with one of the other TX’s
So to sum up; at this point we had a RX that would work with 3 TX’s
Next we tried other TX’s on the field (mine included) and these would NOT operate the RX, it was just the 3 (2 belonging to the trainer and man A’s TX.)
We then rebound the RX in the trainer to one of the 3 TX’s that would operate it, well, nothing changed, and all three could operate it.
Man A had 2 models, both with 6 FASST RX’ in them.
We turned on one of the original trainer TX’s and, well you have guessed it, it could control BOTH of his models.
We tried other TX’s (including mine) none of them would do the same.
So in summary at this point we now have 3 TX’s and 3 RX’ that will work any or all of the others!
To further complicate things we tried the following.
I took my TX (no problem with it and no interference on my RX from the other TX’s). We bound the RX in the trainer to my TX and ….no problem, it would only work on my TX!
We were very lucky today, someone could have been badly hurt or worse, this is a very serious issue.
We now have a ban on any 2.4 systems flying with any other, so, just like superegen.
This needs urgent attention as many sets are out there.

This news will have to be made public soon for safety reasons.

Paul Gray

Ripmax immediately responded to by asking for the return of the sets TX’s involved for checking, this has been done.

My understanding is that has tested all of the 6 channel units in stock and discovered at least 2 more with the problem.
The problem has been identified as the TX having the same code…namely 0000000. As if they have not been blown/programmed.
Ripmax are obviously in constant communication with Futaba and I am sure a solution/announcement is imminent.

I would make the following recommendations.

Get all 2.4 FASST systems in your club together and carry out the following test.

Switch on your TX and all other RX’s, see if any other system will respond, if not then repeat with all other TX’s one at a time. Remember, only 1 TX at a time.
What this will do will show that all the TX’s in your club are not interfering with each others rx, therefore you do not have more than ONE faulty TX present. However if a new TX or module turns up then you MUST repeat the test, because one of your TX’s may have been faulty but it would not show unless 2 or more are present. Bit of a pain but you can at least continue with safety until Futaba give a heads up on this and resolve/replace the faulty TX’s.
We have done this in our club now and are back flying as normal.

Sorry to be the bearer of this news but for safety’s sake you should know, and with a little checking (as indicated) you can still fly non-faulty units with each other perfectly safely.

Paul
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Alex