Lost Plane Locator
 

I am a brand new pilot. I learned a lesson the hard way and wanted to pass
along what I learned to, perhaps spare you the same unfortunate experience.

I didn't know enough to avoid a windy day for my first flights. There were
10-15MPH winds which were gusting to 20 MPH. I also wasn't watching my flight
time. Between the heavy winds and, perhaps having the battery run down to
cut-off level, my Aerobird was carried off by the wind. I ditched it in woods
near the flying field, but never found it. I replaced the plane, but wanted
to make sure this didn't happen again.

I have since learned about plane locators which are devices that beep to help
you find your plane in the woods, corn field or whatever is near your flying
field. For someone using a typical 72 MHZ set-up, these plug into a spare
channel on the receiver. They start beeping when they loose the transmitter
signal, which assumes you have gone out of range, or your
transmitter has failed.

Here is a review of an Emergency Locator Beacon that illustrates its value
(this site is somewhat unreliable)
http://webhome.idirect.com/~arrowmfg...s/elb-revi.htm


Sounds like a good idea to me. Every plane I ever own will have some kind of
locator from now on. Here are examples of locators for 72 MHZ flight systems,
They cost between $15 and $30. They typically go inside the plane. Postings
I have read say you can hear them for about 50-100 feet however if the flight
battery becomes disconnected, they lose power and don't work.

http://www.customelectronics.co.uk/lma.htm
http://www.hobbico.com/accys/hcap0335.html
http://www.rcelectronics.bravepages.com/Locator.html


A Locator for the 27 MHZ crowd

If you are flying one of the 27 MHZ based ready-to-fly planes, like I am, they
are usually based on an electronics compartment that is not easy to get to
unless you take the plane apart. I for one, have no interest in doing that
and I don't think there is a typical receiver with a spare channel in there.
These are planes like the Firebird, T-Hawk, e-gull, or my Aerobird which are
usually purchased by inexperienced flyers who are more prone to lose the
plane. So what do we do?

I found an answer. I ordered a pair of these:

http://www.keyringer.com

They look like a small clicker for your car door locks. They work by sound.
You click one of a pair which sends out a chirp that the second one hears and
answers. Since the unit has to hear the tone, it is best mounted outside of
the airplane or the range will be dramatically reduced.

I tested them, with a clear line of site, and got reliable first try response
to about 175 feet with a response on a second or third try at about 200 feet.
You can hear the tone at that distance, which is pretty far. I then placed it
behind my car's tire away from me. Range when down to about 150 and 175 feet
respectively. Still better than the ones above which go inside the plane.

My plane weighs 16 ounces ready to fly and the keyringer is about 3/4 ounce,
or about 5% of the plane's weight. I think it will be very manageable. I am
going to try attaching it in one of two places for testing.

I will rubber band it to the right side of the body, tucked close up to the
wing using the posts that hold the wing. This places it substantially out of
the air stream, behind the rubber bands, and at the front/rear center of
gravity. We will see what the effect is left right.

The other place will be on top of the wing under the rubber bands that hold
the
wing. It will definitely be in the air stream here, but should balance nicely.
Using it here, it would be very easy to move between planes that use rubber
band mounted wings.

If it works out, I will develop some more permanent mounting method using
screws and epoxy or something like that. If anyone else tries this, I would
love to hear your feedback.

Since this is outside the plane, I don't think I would recommend it for a fuel
plane as there is an open speaker/receiver, so fuel might get inside and
damage it. I see it more for parkflyers, especially the ones that really don't
have a place inside to put the traditional locators. Even on 72 MHZ planes, it
might work out well on "stick" models and flying wings might be good
candidates. Also, since it has it's own batteries, there is no need to attach
it to any of the internal electronics, so there would be no power concerns if
the flight battery came lose, and no concerns about effecting the flight
systems.

I think this could work out. I will let you know how the testing goes. If
someone else has a better idea, let me know.

Lost Plane Locator
 

Since I posted this, I have advanced to sail planes. I had my first hi-start launches two weeks ago so I went to the field to practice today.

Got to the field by 9:15. I put out the BIG hi-start.

Made about 20 Great launches over a period of 3 hours.

One flight almost ended in disaster. My glider, a Great Planes Spirit 2 Meter, went down in the woods. I heard it hit from the middle of the field. I was sure it was a kit plane again.

Changed to long pants and walked into the woods. I was no more than 10 feet in when I hear what I wanted to hear. Beep Beep ..... Beep Beep!.

The plane was about 150-200 feet into the woods, about 10 foot up in a tree. Not a scratch on it. I used my toss line and sinker to get it down. I could not believe it wasn't broken anywhere.

I LOVE THESE PLANE LOCATORS. Heaven knows if I would have found it as it was not near a trail and could not be seen from a trail.

Best $15 I ever spent!

Whether you fly electric, glider or fuel, for under $25 you can put a locator in your plane and really increase you chances of finding the plane, or cutting the search time to zero!

Edit: In case you are interested:

Here is the locator I had in my glider, a Hobbico Air Alert
http://www.hobbico.com/accys/hcap0335.html

After buying it, I discovered that The Air Alert is really intended for electric planes. It is designed to be used on the throttle channel. I will be moving it to my Electrajet. However, it helped me find my glider, so it did its job well.

This is the one I am switching to for the glider, a Digi Alarm
http://www.foamfly.com/customer/prod...171eefa13d85ab

Both also monitor the voltage on the flight pack, so they protect you in two ways.

Also, if you want to be sure that no one is on your channel, turn your receiver on without turning on your transmitter. Depending on the locator, after some period of time, the locator should go into lost plane mode. If it does not, someone is on your channel.

Three ways these can save your plane.

Lost Plane Locator
 

AEAJR it seems to me that the woods love to eat your planes
lol

Good post by the way, very informative.

Lost Plane Locator
 

Yes, it does seem that I tend to play with the trees more than is healthy for myself or my planes. However, you do get to admre the vegetation and the bugs while you stroll through the woods and brush looking for a plane.

Lost Plane Locator
 

and you have the added bonus of getting some nice hanging plane pictures

Lost Plane Locator
 

I believe I will invest in one of these. We do not have many woods near the new runway we built however corn is the crop of choice on the fars. You drop anything in a cornfield most likely the combine will find it before you and then it is way too late.

Lost Plane Locator
 

It is a great way to find a lost plane.
i THink that radio companies should install one of these gadjets into the receivers itself...With the technology now anything is possible!
Hope someone comes up with this idea:)

Lost Plane Locator
 

Trust me, if you fly around corn, buy a locator beacon :D A plane in corn is usually not found until the tractor mows it down. Believe me, I know. My uncle lives in California and their RC field doubles as a crob-duster field. They know about the evil corn.

Lost Plane Locator
 

Here in central Iowa [The Tall Corn State] we also grow soy beans. Beans will swallow a plane just as bad as corn. Three sides of our flying field have crops. Corn one year, beans the next , and on and on. All my planes are equiped with a beeper. Since I have found that most observers are WAY off in guessing where a plane went down the beeper is a real plane saver.

Lost Plane Locator
 

In well over 50% of the crashes I have witnessed (several dozen or more) the battery is disconnected from the reciever in the crash. That means that your plane finder must have its own power supply attached directly to it in order to do any good in these types of crashes.

Lost Plane Locator
 

Which one do you use Rodney?

Lost Plane Locator
 

Rodney, I would agree with you if the plane hits the ground head first, but most of the time in standing corn or soy beans the the plane is cushioned enough that total destruction does not take place. One of our club pilots recently lost a wing, the fuse played "yard dart" into the corn, which now is around 8-9 feet tall, and the fuse suvrived. The beeper help find that, tho the wing was another search.

Lost Plane Locator
 

Does someone has an experience with a different device?

Lost Plane Locator
 

I have had some pretty hard landings and yet to break the battery lose in my Spirit. Lost it once in the woods and it didn't even pop the canopy.

Even when I was teaching myself how to fly my Aerobird, I only lost the battery once, and I had two drops from 150 feet due to a wing failure (I should have known not to fly that wing in 15 MPH wind) and a control line failure because I forgot to tighten the lock screw.

I guess I just do a better job of mounting the battery than most.

Lost Plane Locator
 

There's also Waltson Retrieval Systems who make radio beacons...

Lost Plane Locator
 

Good point 3D:

For really long range finds, measured in miles, there is the Walston system. The plane unit is about $150 and the tracking unit is hundreds of dollars. This is good for clubs, especially glider clubs where the club buys the tracking unit and the members buy the tracker. If your glider costs $1200, a $150 transmitter is worth the cost.
http://www.texastimers.com/helpful_h.../wal_cover.htm

Lost Plane Locator
 

I agree with captjckirk, it depends on where you're flying. Where I fly, almost anywhere you come down is in corn, or weeds, or leafy trees. In four years of flying, and many crashes, the battery only disconnected one time, and that was when the fuse broke in half right where the battery was mounted. Fortunately, the battery was bright yellow, and I found it on the ground quickly. That explained why the plane locator didn't work, but where was the plane? After an embarrassing long time, it occured to me that since batteries don't glide very far, the plane must be straight up, and there it was, 75 feet above the battery in the trees.

Lost Plane Locator
 

I used to fly at a club that had some nasty thicket around a good part of the field that ate airplanes on a regular basis. I went to radio shack and built a buzzer from some cheap parts there. I used a spring loaded switch in a "deadman" arragement that was pushed closed by a wheel collar on the throttle linkage. As long as the switch was closed, the buzzer was off. It had it's own AA battery which was taped to the buzzer and switch. Basically, if the throttle was reduced to idle the switch opened and the buzzer started. In the even that the fuse broke up, the odds were that the whole buzzer assembly would eject together and buzz away. I never tested the total ejection senerio outside of the workshop though. The buzzer did help me locate my plane a couple of times though.

Lost Plane Locator
 

And if it ejected, you'd at elast be ab le to find your $5 buzzer unit :D

Lost Plane Locator
 

Well, as a general rule, I always figured that if the buzzer did manage to eject, the rest of the airplane would likely be scattered in the same general area. :D

Lost Plane Locator
 

Yep, that makes sense to me!

RE: Lost Plane Locator
 

After trying several of these devices, this is my favoriate. Works with Electrics, sailplanes and glow planes. I would recommend it to anyone except the 27 MHZ planes that don't have stanard type receivers. For them I recommend the keyringer.

I have this installed in my Glider
http://www.foamfly.com/customer/prod...&page=1&XCARTS
ESSID=247447e257cd206601b76b2716efe0b5
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 with no impact on the servo.
This will work in any plane with a 72 MHZ receiver.

Low Voltage Watch

In addition to helping me find the planes, this device 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 Warning!

It also serves as a test to make sure no one is flying on my channel.
I turn on the receiver only. If the device does not go into lost plane mode,
then someone else is on my frequency.

RE: Lost Plane Locator
 

I don't think it's a good idea to turn on the receiver (the plane) without transmitter unless you have PCM anf failsafe programmed in it. It's just becuse, if nobody is flying your frequency, your servos will go crazy and they can eazy break gears, your surfaces or just burn the electronics (digital servos).

The rule of thumb is: Transmitter first, receiver second.

RysiuM