Mustangman40

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My new GP Reactor isout in a cornfield after a flame outnear the end of a inverted flt spin and I cant find it!!!!!!!!!!

I was on my third flight and feeling very happy on the performance of the new plane.. I forgot to hit my timer on this flight, I was about 2 minutes in when I turned on the timer, so I thought.. I figured I would land after it makes the half waybeep, mistake number two... Back to the FS, just before I pulled it out the motor quit and I was not in a good spot at all.. I managed to get the plane right side up and level, but had only enough air speed to dive into a quick flair into the corn.. I marked the last spot with a telephone poll, but the corn is thick.. We think we can see it on top of the corn when we stand on a bench, so I am going back with the binos to see if that is it..

The plan is to have a spotter stand on the bench with a walkie talkie while a few of us head into the corn, we will have a pole with a orange flag on it, that way the spotter can talk us into the spot.. The corn has a lot of wind damage with blown over stalks every where, making the walk a major pain in the butt.. You really never think about how much money you have into an air frame till it's sitting out in a field, man my wallet is starting to bleed already.. Well wish us luck!

PS If anyone has a good way to install something on a plane that screams "Hey, I'm over here" Real loud, I would love to here about it............lol

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

The trick I found is to walk AGAINST the rows rather than along them. This will let you look down the rows as you go through them. You can see a lot farther that way

Bill Vargas

My Feedback: (5)

Hope you get to it before that corn machine does!!!

out west here,,, its them tumbleweeds and lots of desert sand that gets into everything when they smack into tera firma

The lucky ones are those that smack into the runway and don t have to walk very far!!!


BV

outdoorhunting

We have corn on 3 sides of us every other year. We have a 8' bambo pole with a orange flag tied on top. One guy will go into the corn carrying it & somebody else will be the "spotter" on top of a truck. It don't work all the time, but its a big help. Good Luck

foodstick

Sometimes your best bet is to get out in the field fast, take your radio..walk in ... wiggle the sticks and listen, walk further wiggle sticks and repeat..sometimes you can get lucky and here it working the servos.

Mustangman40

My Feedback: (1)

Me and are club president were the first two back at the field, I brought my walkie talkies and a 8 foot long piece of PVC with a orange vest tied around it.. I had marked the spot I was standing while flying with a little flag, so the plan was set to have him guide me on the radio towards the land mark I had picked out when I went down..

The first 30 yards of corn ran North South with the runway, then turned East and West and that is where it got real hard.. Where the plane had gone down was in a low spot that had a ton of wind damage, the bent stalks made you have to walk right on a row which was all but impossible.. You couldn’t see any distance when you bent down.. Well after an hour another member showed up and came out in the corn with me, he had to get with in 6 feet of me before we could see each other.. I almost gave up for the night but decided to head west once more and zig zag back to the field. 30 yards later I seen my plane not more then 4 feet in front of me…

Coming in harrier style did the trick, the plane was about half way off the ground and up right.. I couldn’t belive that there wasn’t a scratch on the plane, everything was as it was when I took off.. No holes in the covering and even the wheel pants were fine.. I didn’t have the cowl on yet which made it a lot easier to hoist it up in the air for the walk out.. When we got back to the van I had brought some ice cold beer for the search party and boy was that ever good… After I cooled down, I check to see if I had run out of gas. It was low but still had a few oz left in the tank.. I started it up and she fired right up, but I immediately seen the problem! When I hooked back up the vent line after fueling I went to the outside of the wire I had for my needle valve and the line was pressing firmly on the wire.. When you would advance the throttle the vibration from the satio and the line tight up to the wire would turn the needle valve, I watched this with my own eyes and couldn’t belive it.. The spring that keeps the needle firm was on the weak side so it could turn pretty easy. I will fix that before the next flight for sure…

In total I spent about 2.5 hours in that corn field but couldn’t be happier with the results…

If anyone reading this fly’s near a corn field, here are a few tip for you that made all the difference in finding this plane..

1. I visually marked the location with a pole in the background as to where the plane went in.

2. I turned off my transmitter and set it on the ground where I was standing and went and got something to mark that spot, this was a huge help..

3. The pole with a orange vest on it and the radios worked great, once you are in the 8’ foot tall corn you cant see anything..

4. Don’t give up!!!

JollyPopper

My Feedback: (6)

COOL

Mustangman40

My Feedback: (1)

Something I just thought about..

The plane was on from around 12:30 till 7:00pm without a connection to the transmitter, it's a Futaba 2.4.. Anyone think that could cause a problem with the RX? When we found the plane my buddy had the TX with him and everything was working fine. I ran the motor and played around with it and all seems fine..

Thoughts on that please..

Jimbo

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

Amazing! Great job! Glad you found it.

Many, many years ago when Sepulveda Basin airfield still had corn being grown out in the field next to it, I watched a guys plane go down. I was 13 at the time, IIRC. The man said he would give me and my friend $5 if we found his airplane for him. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking through that corn field and never found it. Like you said, it could have been 6' away and we would not be able to see it.

AmishWarlord

My Feedback: (5)

After taking up Geocacheing a few years ago and looking for camouflaged boxes hidden in the woods, I learned how much help these little guys can be.

Big shinny planes wil be easy now.

flatspinjim

My Feedback: (3)

If you know anyone with an ultralight plane they can fly over the field pretty low and have a better chance of spotting it.

AmishWarlord

My Feedback: (5)

You know if you get Christo Vladimirov Javacheff to drape fabric over the corn field it will be easer to find the plane if it lands into the cloth.

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

Something else worth mentioning...

If you think the plane went down without too much damage, bring your Tx with you. Stop periodically and move the sticks, you just might hear the servos moving!

tommygun32

This one's from foodstick....

Sometimes your best bet is to get out in the field fast, take your radio..walk in ... wiggle the sticks and listen, walk further wiggle sticks and repeat..sometimes you can get lucky and here it working the servos.

AmishWarlord

My Feedback: (5)

Or put in one of these.

There pricey though at $2.75 LOL

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...dProduct=14521

slopoke

My Feedback: (16)

Respect the guy's corn field too. He has a lot of money invested there. One of our helpers was tromping a path through the corn. good way to spoil a relationship.

Jim Thomerson

If corn is not blown down, finding a plane in a cornfield is easy. I've gone in for free flights many time. Just go to where you think the airplane is and walk expanding squares, spaced so you can see everything. You will soon see the airplane, presuming it is there. Soy beans are the pits. If they are very high, they link across the rows, and are difficult to get through. An airplane will nestle down in them where you can almost step on it without seeing it.

Here is my best story. I was flying a red and yellow 1/2A free flight over a hillside covered with red an yellow Indian blanket flowers. I saw the airplane dethermalize and land, but could not find it. I had to leave at dark, and came back the next morning. I could see my airplane from the top of the hill. During the night, the cattle had found my airplane and tromped down about a 30 ft radius area around it. No damage to the airplane.

AmishWarlord

My Feedback: (5)

You got that right Jim!

Seen, or should I say didn't see a 1/4 scale bright yellow Space Walker go down 150 yards away into soy beans. Joked that it was an easy find and that we where glade Corn wasn't planted. After hours and hours the plane was located. It had slid under the beans and was entirely covered by the leaves.

DriftingFast

Get this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003WF..._d_detail?pd=1

It even has 2 recievers so you can use it for 2 planes. Just tuck a reciever In the plane.

Mustangman40

My Feedback: (1)

Absolutely.. The land owner was there and told us not to worry to much about that, he had to buy a special rake attachment for his combine to pick the corn up when he harvests... But being I am a deer hunter andI am alwaysin andaround aggie fields, I cant just blast through someones lively hood like I have seen some do... Had the corn all been upright, I think I would have found the plane a lot faster then we did.. A few years ago I was told a very $$$ Heli went in and they never found it, but the combine did a couple months later... I was really starting to think that my plane was going to have the same fate, luck was on my side I guess....

Mike,I did just that.. I had my spotter work the controls so I didn't have to carry the TX,walkie talkieand thepole.. When it would get quiet i would bend down and have him work the sticks, but I never did here it... When my spotter came out in the field he brought the TX with him, I never seen my radio with more dust on it ever..lol I blew it off when I got home and all is good...

After going over everything all was good to go.. I put 5 flights on the plane yesterday and had a blast, GP did a great job on this plane, I love it...

raptureboy

Try one of these, even if it seperates from the plane in a crash it will still sound off. I have one and it works. I have not had to use it to find my plane (yet) but it beeps after 15 min and I can hear it as my plane goes by so I know I'm almost out of fuel too. http://ramrcandramtrack.com/rcfails.html

piper28

Yeah, but with a geocache you get the coordinates for where the target is. Not so with the plane out in the corn. Does make a small difference

My BTE Venture is out in the corn field somewhere, and I've tried several times and haven't found it, don't expect that I'm going to. Corn's about 7 feet plus, and you can't see more than a row or two away. (Oh, and the mosquito's are particularly vicious back in the corn.)

GPS is useful for trying to walk a line, but if you don't really have a feel for how far out the plane is, doesn't take much for your line to be off and you'll be too far from the plane.

I don't really like soy or corn, but at least with soy you can see where you're headed (although it's a pain to walk through).

(Oh, and I blame my wife for the fact that the plane out in the middle of the corn is green, she picked the color ).

AmishWarlord

My Feedback: (5)

My GPS has tracking so and can put in a line from where your standing to a tree or pole or something in between you and where the plane when down and that tree. The it lays a tack so you can follow that line. If you don’t find it on that line you can go over and lay down new lines to the right or left of where you where. This helps tell you where you have been in the field.

outdoorhunting

GPS used as a search tool?? Excellent idea !!! In 10' corn you could set up your search pattern, go out to a "way-point", go over 10 to 12' & come back, never doubling over your original line !! Almost makes me want to take a plane out to the field & run it into the corn. Almost! I will have my GPS in the truck from now on. Again, one heck of an idea !!!

AmishWarlord

My Feedback: (5)

You need one that makes tracks. Car GPS are no help in a corn field.