During my pilot development I learned how hard it can
be to find a plane that has landed in the
woods, tall grass and other places where you can't see it. Fortunately there
are aids for this kind of situation.

I lost my Aerobird when a huge gust of wind carried it over deep woods and I
was too inexperienced to deal with it. Even though I was certain I knew where
it went down I could not find it. I bought another Aerobird and fly it often.

When I moved on to gliders I started flying a Great Planes Spirit 2
Meter. I got into trouble and it went down into heavy woods and brush. I
went into the woods to find it. Fifty feet into the woods, trying to decide
how to proceed since the area the plane went down could not be seen from a
trail, I heard Beep Beep Beep. The plane was about 150 feet away in heavy
tree growth. I had the plane located and out in 10 minutes. Believe me,
where it had landed I likely would not have found it.

The difference was a little device you put in the plane that gets attached to
the receiver. If you turn off the transmitter, the thing starts beeping
loudly and you can hear it from quite a distance.

This is what I use in my Spirit Sailplane and several of my other planes.
http://www.californiasailplanes.com/...l%20alarm.html

It hooks to any channel or it can share a channel with one of your servos. It
has the connector to pass through to the servo.
This will work in any plane with a 72 MHZ receiver. This is the one I
recommend to everyone.

Low Voltage Watch

In addition to helping me find the planes, the Digi Alarm also monitors my
battery pack voltage and sounds an alarm if the pack voltage gets below a safe
level. This is especially valuable on my glider. If I catch a good thermal,
I could be in the air for over an hour, so a pack that tested good on the
ground could run low during the flight.

Channel Conflict Test!

As a test to make sure no one is flying on your channel, turn on the receiver
only. If the device does not go into lost plane mode then someone else is on
your frequency.

Here are five I have not tried, but look interesting.

lost Model Locator - $10
Does one job, but does it well, I hope.
http://www.allthingsrc.com/webshop/p...products_id/39

It is called the Be Found from GWS. - $15
http://www.gws.com.tw/english/produc...it/befound.htm

SkyKing RC Lost Model Locator - $20
http://www.skykingrcproducts.com/acc...del_alarm.html
Review
http://www.slopeflyer.com/artman/pub...el_alarm.shtml

RC Reporter - $24
A bunch of features
http://www.rcreporter.com/products.html


For 27mHZ planes like the Aerobird, Firebirds, etc

My Aerobird does not have a conventional receiver that I can connect to. The
electronics and servos are one integrated circuit board. No place to connect
one of the above locators. On the Aerobird I use a key ringer.
www.keyringer.com One of these on the plane and one stays in my pocket. If I
am looking for the plane, I click the one in my hand and the one on the plane
answers:

Every plane I ever own will have some kind of locator and battery monitor from
now on. Of course you only need one. You can move it from plane to plane,
but at $15-30 they are cheap enough you can put one in every plane and forget
it!

For really long range finds, measured in miles, there is the Walston system.
The plane unit is about $150 while the tracking unit is hundreds of dollars.
This is good for clubs, especially sailplane clubs. If your sailplane costs
$2000, a $150 transmitter is worth the cost.
http://www.texastimers.com/helpful_h.../wal_cover.htm


Here is a more complete article on the subject

Lost Model Locators
http://www.rcezine.com/cms/article.php?cat=&id=67

Many pilots don't know about these devices. Now you do!