DBCherry

My Feedback: (4)

I saw that coming, but it was still funny as heck! [sm=lol.gif]
Thanks,
Dennis-

dabigboy

Hey the ladder idea has merit. Much better view of the situation, and would give your flying buddies a good laugh seeing you out there on top of the ladder surveying the countryside.

But I fly alone most of the time, so no worries........now I need to figure out how to get a ladder in my car.......hmmmmmmm.............

-Matt Bailey

phayd

Ladders don't help. We were out looking for 2 planes last weekend. One guy climbed a cell tower with binoculars. We searched for a rather long time to no avail. It's a shame, because there is a $150 bounty on one, and that was going to go toward parts for my Corsair.

As to corn fields, there are two types... Seed and Production. Seed corn is in nice neat rows, easily walked, as thousands of High School kids were doing two weeks ago to de-tassel. Production corn does not need this treatment, so it is much thicker. Furthermore, the harvester does not need rows, so they are less worried about them when they are working.

My thought about finding a plane, although I have not tried this, is to use a search and rescue dog. Give them a swatch of fuel soaked balsa, and you should have a plane in minutes. I have an acquaintance that trains cadaver dogs, and she says they can smell through 20 feet of water. Surely they can smell the castor oil on the plane.

TopShelf

My Feedback: (4)

I had a similar experience with a wheat field this year. The local small airport was more than happy to help. If you have one in your area, might be a good thing to try.

David E.

My Feedback: (7)

I lost a Baby Buzzard for a week in a corn field.
A friend in the club I was in helped out by flying his real Piper Cub over the corn and he saw it and started to circle till we got there. Here is some hope for you. The plane didn't have a scratch. The corn caught it.
Hope this helps some
David

Bayou Talker

My Feedback: (1)

I saw a show on model rockets last night and one of the guys had to find a rocket in a corn field. He had some kind of device in it that would produce a sound when he would whistle. It just took him a short while to locate the rocket by following the sound. I am thinking about trying to find more info on it and put it in a plane or two just to try it out. Sounded like a good idea to me.

SoonerAce

My Feedback: (1)

If you have the presence of mind, take a compass with you to the field. When the unfortunate happens, (and it will). get out the compass and take a bearing slightly to the left and right of where you think it went down. write them down! walk out past where you believe it went in by twice distance. make a turn towards the other heading, walk until your on the other heading. you have just made a triangle. The plane is in that area. Unless of course its in the Bermuda Triangle!

BBW Walt

My Feedback: (11)

I just spent 4 days in the corn retrieving a giant Ultimate. It takes patience, bug spray and having the sun in the right direction helps. Get as many opinions as you can as to where everyone thinks it went in at. Start in the center of all the opinions. I go 90degrees with the rows. Each row bend down and look down the row from each side. If the sun is right you can look 50yards to each side. then step to the next row and continue. When you know you have gone far enough walk down the last row 100 yards. Turn around and start back doing the same thing. I did the left of center one day and right of center the next. The plane I was after came apart in the air and was scattered all over the place, quite a mess. I found all but one end strut and the bottom right wing panel. My back and arms were complaining the whole time. If you walk straight ahead 90 deg to the row its easier to maintain your heading and orientation. This system worked for me, good luck, walt

b717doc

Lost 1/4 scale cub in thick woods. searched for days...no luck. Took off from runway with 'ol reliable Ultra Stik, and circled last known position, while others continued search, downed cub found within minutes (totally destroyed). Crash site was an illusion if you walked up and around ridge, as viewed from field,,,,,threw us way off.

air mail rcu

Glad you got your plane back. I lost one and looked for two days. Could not find it. Went back to club house and a friend of mine said he thought the plane was a little to the left of were I was looking. I took his advice and walked right to it. So if anyone else saw it go in ask them were they think it went in.

nuteman

So now it's my turn to find my plane in a corn field. I flew alone, so I don't have the benefit of a second opinion about where it went down. In my case, I just lost track of the time and lost engine power and glided it in. I feel stupid enough already - I'm usually careful about timing how long I've been flying - I guess because I've been flying with my son lately and he reminds me of time elapsed, so I came to rely on him. This time I was alone and having way too much fun so the time flew by (pun intended).I searched for about 1.5 hours going up and down rows in the approximate area. Now that I know that it is likely way further out than where I thought it was, I'll try again tomorrow morning. There's some nice electronics in the plane (battery, ESC, motor, servos, receiver) but that's not the main reason I want the plane back. I worked hard tweaking the airframe to get it to fly just right (it's a scratch built - my own design - flying wing with canted winglets), and I'd grown attached to the plane.I'll report back to y'all if I find it.Wish me luck!!!!

bob62

My Feedback: (28)

A Ultralight works very well if you know someone that owns one

TopShelf

My Feedback: (4)

Doh, I didn't realize I already posted my advice.

maukaonyx

Do you know someone with a plane or 4-6 rotor chopper thingy that can carry a camera? My cousin and I once searched for a downed slope glider with an instamatic camera in his bigger glider. That was a chore to take off, fly over an area, snap a pic, land, wind the camera one frame forward, and do it repetitively. As crazy as it sounds, we got a pic with the plane in it, and enough landmarks such as the nearby road, that we were able to get oriented correctly and retrieve the plane days later. Good luck...you will find it. Jon

nuteman

Guys, thanks for the advice. I don't have any other resources/people I can call on for this. My search this morning was not successful (went out further than I thought in landed, as suggested).At this point I think I need to exercise a little self discipline. I've invested 4 hours of search time plus the time and gas money to get to the field. I could have earned the cost of the plane and electronics twice over (it's a scratch build, so the airframe was very low cost) in that time. Now, of course I invested time building the plane (about 10 hours) - but I might spend less time just building it again rather than searching endlessly (especially since the build definitely will go faster this time). I think I'll give it one more morning (2 hours) in another patch of field I think there's some chance of it being in, and then call it quits.

da Rock

It's important to learn from situations we encounter.

One of the most valuable things to do next time you see a model go down is to look at where you are right then. Also get a bearing exactly where the plane went down by picking out something in the distance exactly behind where you saw the plane go in. You'd be surprised how few modelers do those two things.

As for tall corn, the suggestion to use a compass is excellent. For the tall corn around here, we've had searchers walk under lost planes and not notice them.

When you're in the corn, remember to look as far up and down the row you're on every so often when you're crossing rows.

Sorry that advice isn't much good after the fact, but it will be some day.

da Rock

A couple of years ago, a club regular lost a 30% Yak in the corn. He knew exactly where it went down in the corn. We had about 5 guys walking the area he had seen it go down in. It was a smaller area backed by a section of trees. No problem. After about an hour of effort that covered every inch of that relatively small area of corn night fell.

Another regular at the field bought an inexpensive "pocket" video camera just before the crash. A couple of days after the failed searches, my buddy with the camera and I got together to overfly with it on my 2m electric glider. We taped the camera on the glider. I flew a grid search over that area, about 15-20 minutes worth. I was above the height of the trees and high tension lines that crossed that corn where the model was supposed to be.

We played the video back on a laptop right after landing. The model showed up clearly about a minute into the video. I had launched my glider on the section of farm road between the corn fields as we walked toward where the lost plane was supposed to be. That required a straight out climb over the trees to keep the climb in view. I circled a few times to keep it in sight as we walked to where I could see the search pattern over the corn.

The lost plane was not in the corn field. It wasn't in the forest behind the corn field. There was a pasture behind the section of forest. The pasture had forest bordering it on the far side. I had overflown the field while climbing. The video showed empty pasture, and then. The plane had gone down at a shallow angle on the far side of the pasture and slid to just under the trees over there. My circling beyond the search area had gone high enough that the rear of the model's debris field was visible.

They often are farther than we think.

Nobody that had seen the model go down had noticed it went behind the trees. Nobody had made a point to note something that would mark the bearing in line with the crash. The couple of guys who'd seen it go down really weren't paying attention.

jester_s1

Guys, a lost plane indicator is $6.99 well spent. I put them in my planes because they double as a "Hey dummy, you bumped the switch and are going to ruin your battery in about 2 hours indicator" as well. The ones I have are on the rudder and start beeping after 30 seconds of no activity.