Hi Guys,
I been reading post here for a while now and finally got me a Nexstar.Joined a club and had been enjoying learning to fly.
Have had about five flights before it went AWOL.Dont really know what happened,was on a buddy cord with my instructor and by the time he took over it seemed to be way to far away,he got it turned back towards us then i just watched it spin towards the ground and then lost sight of it ,think it ended up in a forest.Spent 3hrs trying to find it but no luck.The only bit that hurts is i cannot salvage anything.
So my question is,does anyone fit a lost plane alarms to their planes.I read many posts but have not seen it come up.
I would be very interested in your comments.
Dont worry guys im not giving up,as the days go by the loss gets easier to take.
Im going out again for one more good look,then back to LHS to buy another.
One other question,does anyone wrap their receivers in plastic?.
Thanks for all advice given,learnt a lot from r/c Universe
Rgds
Les

I've never seen one installed or used but I suppose one could come in handy in some conditions. Hindsight: Your instructor shouldn't have let you flown so far away and YOU should have asked for help sooner.

Sorry for the loss and keep your spirits up.

Iwik,
They are available. I have looked into them but not gotten one yet.
Try googling them or look at Tower Hobbies.
Good Luck,
KW_Counter

Yes there are several different designs available. Just a word of advice, use one that has it's own integral power supply. Do not count on the receiver battery to do the job as, in many crashes, the battery becomes disconnected from the receiver. Most are just a pulse emmission detector (usually an LM555 and associated circuitry) with a 9 volts dry cell and switch opperating a solid state audio device.

I had one in one of my planes for over to seasons and it would beep if their was no throttle action within a minute.I lost the plane in dense woods and when i went looking for it i heard the beep very faintly but could not locate it.After about three weeks of off and on searching i finally found it.What i trying to say is all it did was give me a general idea where it was located.When i did find it it had a dead batt and no beep.I think i could have found it without it just using line of sight when your plane gets in trouble.

I am new to airplanes but my other hobby, high power rocketry, locator devices are routinely used. Any where from a simple beeping device to radio emitter with hand held tracking to GPS.
I don't see any reason why any of these would not work on an airplane.

I have a GWS lost model alarm fitted into my largest / most expensive model.
It will beep when tx is turned off or an aux switch is flicked.
It will also beep if the rx battery is low.
http://www.aeromicro.com/Catalog/gws...r__1318614.htm

They are ok, and I had to use mine the second time I went out with this plane!
Luckily I found my plane a lot more easily with it beeping away in 6 feet high crops in a farm field, but you still have to have a good line of sight of where it actually went.
The downside of it is that although it has a decent volume of beeping, this is easily drowned out with it being fitted inside your model, plus the distance you are away from it when looking for it, so you need to know the general area of where it is anyway.
The tracking systems are better, but are expensive, as you need receiving equipment etc, and is not as common.

I have a lost plane alarm. Cost about $15 and they work fine. Alarms are not all inclusive solutions and the battery connection can be broken in a crash. The sound is faint but very helpful.

Bill

don't work. they are very loud in a room, but if your plane goes down in a corn field, you can't hear them until you are on top of the plane. if your battery becomes disconnected as in most bad crashes, it won't work anyway.

when I started I worried about this. I used a radio beacon but out by Estes for locating model rockets. You put the device in the plane and have a little hand unit with you. it changes tone with increased signal kinda like a metal detector. Haven't offered that in years though. I lost my radio beacon in a bike that got stolen

It's not just crashes that they are needed though.
Mine came in handy when the engine in mine went deadstick (as it was still new, and not run in), and I had to land in the crops to save it, as I didn't have enough height to get back.
But yes, hearing it in a cornfield is near impossible unless you are within about 10-15 feet of it, and if your battery is disconneted you are stuffed, but overall, it could help you out to retrieve your model that may otherwise be lost for good.

I've never worried about having a beacon on any of my planes, but we actually had a discussion about this at our field a few weeks ago. Here's what we came up with, and it's what I would do if I were to add something to my plane. I'd put a GPS tracking device in it. They have devices that are getting fairly small now and shouldn't add too much weight to the plane. That way you can be guided directly to where your plane is. I can't remember where I saw it here on RCU, but I did read a post not too long ago about somebody that used a GPS device in his plane and recorded his flights with it.

Something to think about.

Ken

GPS is good, but at what price ?

Transmitter device & receiving / decoding equipment -
Quite expensive probably.

Maybe a bit OTT, unless you have a bad history of losing planes ?

Value of a tracking device depends on where you are in the hobby. Some people have many thousands of dollars rapped up in some of their planes. A couple hundred for a tracking device may be a good insurance policy in the event of a runaway.

I suppose so, if you look at it from that perspective, point taken [sm=thumbup.gif]

i feel ur pain.i just lost my alpha 60 trainer here recently.bout 300 dollar plane.thinking about the gps hard.

The speaker should have access to the outside of the plane to be heard:
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXSZ87&P=7

Sorry about your loss, But did you look behind the the tree

Yeh your right, I ought to move mine really, and drill a hole in the side of the fuz to let the sound out.

I have them on two of my most used planes. Have not needed them yet but I feel it's the least I can do for the benifit of whoever might help me find-retrieve a down plane as I am getting too old to chase them down myself as they could land out in the boonies and be difficult to get out to, as I am somewhat handicaped. I drill a hole in the side of the fus so the sound emitter is open to the outside of the fus so it can be more readily heard, and I use velcro so it can be removed and switched to another plane easily.

I don't know about any other makes, but my GWS one also incorporates a low batt alarm also.
I always check the battery before flying anyway with a proper battery checker prior to taking it up, but if you haven't got a proper battery checker (which you should have really) then this is better than nothing.

FWIW, I've been using one of these in my airplanes (hooked into the aileron channel with a Y-cord) ever since I spent hours looking for an airplane which was attacked by a tree. I haven't had any problems with them...

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXSZ87&P=7

Hi All,
Sorry for the delay in returning.Thanks to all for the valuble comments.Been so busy looking for it.Pleased to announce that
today i was REUNITED with my plane.It took two weeks before a decent wind came along to dislodge it.
Amazingly no damage.
Les

Great to hear it, Les.[sm=cool.gif]

Jonathan.