mike early

I lost one Saturday. Rx battery came disconnected is the theory. Figured I better settle in for a long wait until I find it again. At least until the vegetation dies.....

rmenke

My Feedback: (13)

Wooooooooooooo

Should hear of some great wierd stuff: Several years ago I was doing a maiden on a home brew go faster thing, Nelson powered with Jett carb. After making a few pylon turns up high, all control went away. It kept going strong and streight unill we could not see it any more. Several months later, I went to our typical club meeting. At one table there was a pile of balsa, monocote and related junk. The only thing worth taking home was the engine. Never saw a servo cut in half before, or a 6 cell flight pack modified to 4. Farmer had seen it go into his corn harvester, recognized what it was and decent enough to leave it at the local hobby store. His place is about 25 miles from our strip. ENJOY

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

I had a pcm lock out on one about 15 years ago,,, I'm still looking

Man I had that plane trimmed perfect [:@]

bogbeagle

12 months.

Up a tree.

Knackered.

mike early

I'll post some signs on trees in the assumed area with a reward after work today, I think. Saito 180, Century Jet retracts. Fuselage, cowl, and center wing section are fiberglass, so stuff might be protected against the elements for as long as it takes. My best guess can narrow it down to 1 million square feet of dense woods and a couple roads.
I think the battery came loose and shot to the tail. It looped higher and higher until it was lost in the clouds. Finally ran out of fuel and came out of the clouds in a slow, gentle, circling decent. Probably balanced better that I ever had it. Hard to judge distance, but perhaps 1 mile away.

mike early

"Knackered" meaning tired, exhausted or broken, commonly used in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Slang.
Oof, not good!

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

Sorry to here that,, sounds like a few more $$ than the one I lost,,, good luck

mike early

It WAS my least-favorite plane.....haha, but now I miss it.

MILDBILL-RCU

My Feedback: (6)

Well, In Aug. of 1987 I lost a "HOTS" due to pcm "fail safe" kicking in. I was flying straight & level across the field about 100 ft in the air & at half throttle. The Futaba radio I had then was setable to how you wanted the stick positions if it went to "fail safe mode" I had set the servos to go to two or three clicks above idle & a gentle left hand flat turn. We all watched for 15 minutes while it just flew VERY wide flat circles till it was out of sight. I even got in my car & tried to follow it so if I got control back, I could fly it back. No luck. I gave up looking for it in 1991. I still wonder if it is somewhere out there just waiting to be found. It wouldnt be worth anything after all these years, but I still wonder. Bill

Nova5

http://www.rocketreviews.com/reviews..._loc8tor.shtml

mike early

That seems a wonderful idea....but 40' seems a bit limited.

Any other options of that sort?

foodstick

I have a long funny thread about an airplane that chucked the engine off of it in flight..it was one of the first of the newer glow engines at the time..and it was missing for almost 20 years or so when found !


http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_76...tm.htm#7617312

Nova5

that was just 30 seconds on google, my brother had a sonic based one for tracking model rockets many years ago when we were kids. Turned it on and it was screech this high pitched sound. the locator was nothing more than a amplified mic. Should be better ones since that one is made for locating keys, etc.

mike early

I have found this: http://www.com-spec.com/rcplane/index.html
Expensive. Seems great.

A Club could buy one of the receivers and folks could buy transmitters for their planes.

Bill Martovich

My Feedback: (11)

Three months ago I lost a 50 cc extra due to Trans malfunction (Spectrum DX7) and it took three guys three days to find it in the thick woods 3/4 of a mile from the field. I hauled the electronics bits and the engine home only to discover 1 8411 servo and arm missing. Even with knowledge of where it went in I couldn't find it again. The woods are a tangeled mass of down trees from a Ice storm 2 years ago and full of ticks and chiggers, you must were full cover clothes and heavy boots. Since it's been over 100 deg here for the last month I'm waiting for cooler (80s) weather to go look again. That's a 100 + $ servo and a 15$ alum arms that the squirlles don't need.
Oh I forgot This is the Ozarks, because of the wild Hogs and dogs that folks let run loose you must be armed. My 45 1911 make me feel safer..

Bill

mike early

Congrats!


Here, the dogs are friendly! But not friendly enough to help me find my plane. I search some more this weekend. Not looking forward to it. I am going to try to convince my field to buy a radio-locator device.

smart1

it's not longest time for the airplane but the pilot. 3 years ago at warbirds over iowa a guy lost a green p38 in the corn feild,the corn was ten feet tall. he went in to find it ,10 minutes later 2 other guys go in. 45 minutes later the 2 guys come back out with the plane but no pilot, he was lost. 2 hour's later the pilot emerged scraped up from the corn leaves, wet (found the creek). total time in corn 3 hours(1 1/2 hours after the event).

mountainroad

My Feedback: (18)

About three years ago I had just finished a glider and had a power pod on it. I launched it at the field and as I did My hand sliped and I turned the flight power switch off. The plane flew up and in big circles, After 5-6 minutes we could here the engine shut off but could hardly see the plane it was so high, and now the breeze was carrying it away. I tried to follow it but to know use. with all the hay fields I could not keep track of the plane so I went back to the airport to load powered planes and start the search. (flight time is now about 20 minutes) by the time I got my planes broke down and in the truck It had been a better part of 35 minutes, As I pulled out the gate one of guys yelled at me. I got out of the truck to hear laughing at my glider 100' off the ground and just up wind of the field. when it landed, it did so better then I could have ever done, and came to a stop not 20' from where I had thrown it, 45 minutes earlier. It was great.

mikekosatka

My Feedback: (7)

Glacier Girl was lost about 60 years!! .

Montague

I've personally never had a plane never come back, but I've seen several over the years.
I've also seen a few planes that were found when winter came around, or years later.

Personally, when I was first learning to fly when I was around 14yrs old, I crashed my plane well out in some tall brambles. I spent the rest of that day crawling around looking for the plane, totally lost, since inside and under those bushes, there was no way to see where I was going. I did find 2 other planes that were left out there, one of which had a family of field mice living in it. But no sign of my plane that day. I apparently got so turned around that I was no where near my plane when I found the other 2.

The next day I came back with a compass, lopping shears, machette (newly bought), boots and long clothing. Taking the brute force "go in a straight line, cutting down anything in the way" approach, I found my plane a couple of hours later. It was hung well up in the bushes, and not badly damaged.

I've also used buzzers hooked to the throttle servo, or later, one that plugs into the RX that makes noise when the TX is off. They have both been useful, but only when pretty close to the plane.

mike early

I'd give a 80% chance that my plane is somewhere in this one million square feet:

gkamysz

My Feedback: (19)

I say there is a 1% chance it crashed into the back of a dump truck driving down the road never to be seen again.

I helped find an airplane 400-500 ft deep in 10 ft tall corn a couple weeks ago. We had a good bearing and with a GPS to help keep us on track I found it in 5 minutes. A previous search party was out for half an hour.

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

There was an incident publisized in one of the early editions of Model Aviation (AMA magazine) I beleve around 75 or so.

Not sure of the area of the country this occured in but apparently someone flying a freeflight somewhere suffered a flyaway in the forties, an all to common occurance and it for all practical purposes was lost forever to the relatively young AMA member.

The airplane was discovered by a rancher that was a good many miles away. Not knowing what to do with it, eventually it was stored in an attic of the house and completely forgotten.

Flash forward now to the early seventies and the rancher had passed on and when the family was cleaning out the ranch house it was discovered. Apparently one gentleman was able to still read the AMA number accross one wing. He did some research (snail mail days) learned about the AMA and called them. They were amazed to discover that the yooung man who had suffered the flyaway so many years before was still a continous member they were able to connect. Unlike so many of us who had been in and out with multiple numbers.

It is a great story and I remember the photo well of the meeting to return the petrafied model.

John

vicman

My Feedback: (10)

I have a Lanier Predator fuse that was being hauled around by Dave Norman's Q500 Nelson still out in the NC mountains from last year's Carolina Speed Rally. I did recently find the other half of the folded wing. I still wander the woods looking for it.[&:]