turbojimmy

Hi all,

Other than hacking the offending tree down, does anyone have any creative suggestions for retrieving a plane from a tree. It's about 40-50 feet up and hung up pretty good on its landing gear. We've tried:

- throwing random objects at it: too high to hit
- throwing a rope with a weight on the end of it: rope too heavy; won't go high enough
- tying the rope to the tree as high as possible and shaking vigorously: plane is too stuck
- fishing pole: can cast close to the plane but the line is too flimsy
- smaller rope: my brother is trying this now with a big hook tied to the end

I'm thinking of bringing a potato cannon up there with a portable air tank to either blow it out of the tree (with a potato) or to thread some rope through the potato to shoot it higher into the tree.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Jim

LeeHop

Jim -

I was recently involved in a retrieval like this. We used a slingshot with a fishing reel attached. You're close with the casting you did. The trick is to shoot it, then tie something like masonry twine to the fishing line and pull it back. You may want to use the twine to pull up a 1/4" rope if needed for strength.

Then you and another guy on each end of the rope pull & shake like crazy :-)

Mind you, this is a *salvage* operation. It is just about guaranteed to destroy what's left of your plane, but you can still get the engine, radio, servos, etc. back.

Good luck! Send us some pictures!

Lee

turbojimmy

I guess it is a salvage operation. It's actually in great shape - perfectly in tact and just resting on the branches. But it's looking like it will need to be destroyed in order to retrieve it.

Jim

Blade-breaker

My Feedback: (4)

40-50 feet not too high. Call your local electrician, roofer, carpenter,ect that has a boom truck. Probably less $ than a replacement plane.

Remember, whatever you do TAKE PICTURES!!

sir crashallot

harpoon gun or cross bow or bow and arrow with fishing line attatched and last of all if it fails a set of drain unblocking rods what they use to clear drains when blocked.

OffroadBEAR

My Feedback: (2)

You could climb the tree, wrap a rope around the tail feathers and lower it down, then climb back down. May be a little dangerous, but depending on how cheap you are (I would risk it for a plane that is fairly expensive and in perfect shape sitting in a tree), it may be worth a try.

How big is the plane? .40, .60, 50cc sized?

sir crashallot

haha im scared to look down let alone climb a tree thank god it isnt me in that situation

turbojimmy

It's in a really tough spot. It's a brand new Eagle 540T - it was $200. My brother climbed an adjacent tree and threw a rope around the branch that the plane is resting in. He anchored one end of the rope to his tree and lowered the hook/rope down to me. Pulled on that thing as hard as I could. The plane was flopping all around but wouldn't come loose. It's hung up on the landing gear. I'm going to shoot it with the potato cannon. I need to dig up a cylinder to bring some compressed air. The thing is, it's in a tree at the edge of a football field. I can't hire someone to fetch it since you can't get a vehicle back there.

The good news is that the $70 Li-Po battery ejected when it hit the tree. I have that, at least.

Here are some pics:

turbojimmy

Here's a pic of the potato gun. It's deadly accurate and will shoot a potato through a human. It will blow the plane apart, but it needs done.

foodstick

Could you climb high enough to trim a small branch or two with one of those extendable tree trimmers? They have some with about a 10 foot reach I think.. Around here that potato gun would/could get you arrested..

turbojimmy

It's really tough to get near it, or the branches that have it suspended. I've never spent so many hours staring up at a tree before.

Around here I'll only get arrested if I get caught with it ;-). It's too big to fit in my pants, unfortunately.

Jim

sir crashallot

haha just dont miss the plane or il be seing it on the news. chinaman knocked out by flying potato LOL good luck geting it down or blowing it down let us no what happens

foodstick

well, I hope you can get it down, its to bad you can't snipe the branch close to the airplane ...and have your buddy stand directly below it wrapped in all the bubble wrap I have recieved over the years from tower !

Hey, do you know anybody with one of those big trampolines? ha ha

Habaneroe

My Feedback: (1)

Lol ok so everyone admits the best you can do is save the innards what is the value of those? Sentimental maybe...

So you break your neck or lose your eyebrows in a potato gun mishap creative solution I admit. I also bet they have ordinances about such activity.

Tree snagged my micro citabria. I walked down the street and this contractor had his truck in his driveway with lengths of thin pvc pipe. Talk about luck and he was happy to help.

Adapt adopt improvise but ultimately you have to decide if it is worth your time/possible trouble.

icegs

I got a Hangar 9 Aresti 40 with a really nice YS engine stuck in a tree a couple months back. It was about 60 feet up, and took 4 days to get down...


Day 1:
Tree moves and grabs my plane. Spend a while looking up at the tree and repeating "how do I get that down," and looking at all the bear excrement and berries surrounding the tree. I threw a few things at it and went home for a fishing rod. I came back and got all my weights stuck in the tree and still had no plane.

Day 2:
Go back with the fishing rod and a huge back of 1/2" nuts for weight (cheaper than fishing weight). Spend about an hour and a half tangling the line in the tree and shaking branches hoping the plane would fall out. It's now a little lower. Decided to leave when my girlfriend was complaining about something in the bushes grunting at her. Chased a small bear away and went home for the day.

Day 3:
Big bear eating berries from the bushes surrounding the tree that my plane is stuck in. Went home. Watched a big rain storm come through, and thought about my plane spending a long, wet, lonely night in the tree.

Day 4:
Average sized bear between my car and the plane. Went for coffee, and came back and couldn't see the bear anymore. Did some more fishing in the tree, and shook the plane out, but it fell into another tree. It was only about 20 feet up, and I could climb this one. Grabbed the air horn to scare the bears, and climbed the tree. I finally won. I had my plane back. Gathered up all the tools, and got back to the car before the bears came back.



Shaking the tree with a good-sized fishing rod and some 25lb line was pretty effective in shaking the plane out of the tree. I fixed a small amount of damage, and got the plane flying again.

Two flights later, it was totalled.

turbojimmy

I guess it's not really worth anything to me. I already have a spare 4-channel radio, servo and brushless motor from my last excursion (that one was a TB-20 that died a spectacular death in a vertical nosedive when it lost power for some reason). Anything I salvage from this one will be redundant.

The potato gun works on compressed air - no flame involved. The laws are fuzzy on such things. The only danger it poses (other than being on the potato-end of it) is if the PVC air chamber were to burst. PVC tends to splinter when it blows. But, I plan to keep the pressure low so that I can knock the plane out of the tree with minimal damage. Then the bears can eat the potatos.

Your story sounds a lot like mine, except the part where you actually got it back. I'm traveling on business the next couple of days so I can't do anything with it until I get back. In the meantime, my business trip will be ruined by my obsessing about it.

Jim

Jim

deothoric

Ok, now I have to have a How To for a potato gun. I can knock that piping togther but what pressure am I looking to introduce and how are you doing it in the field today? My parameters for the engineering exercise include a 60" wingspan and around 75 feet up the tree. Its been there for 5 weeks and though retrieving in one piece was preferred, after all the time I've burned on it, blasting it to ribbons will be equally satisfying

turbojimmy

It's deceivingly simple. At 60 PSI it will shoot a potato straight up higher than you will be able to see it. I plan to use a 10-gallon portable air tank in the field. I'm thinking probably 30 PSI will shoot a potato high enough to knock the plane out. Do a search on the web - you'll get tons of hits. I built it for fun - just to say I did it. I sharpened the barrel so it slices the potato on the way in. I ram the spud in with a broom stick. The barrel is 1.5" and the chamber is 2". I experimented with different sized chambers and barrel lengths and that one seems to work best. It takes only minutes to construct.

My son had a rubber ball that was the perfect size for the thing. As predicted, however, we lost it after the 4th or 5th shot up. I heard it land in the mulch bed but it hit so hard it buried itself.

If you put a slightly smaller barrel on it you can shoot golf balls, which will cause horrific damage.

When I'm back in town (Thursday, probably), I'm going to shoot mine out of that tree. I'll make sure I get it on video.

Jim

drbenz

My Feedback: (11)

I have successfully removed a plane from a tree 40 feet up with sections of PVC pipe hooked together. It gets a little shakey when it gets long, but if you can rest it against a branch it can work.

Habaneroe

My Feedback: (1)

My guess is that you will not be able to aim the cannon well enough to hit it.

Iturnright

You just need a ladder plus a window washing/pool cleaning/light bulb changing stick and just poke it out of there.

This has happened at our field and it took a little effort, but thanks to a local flyer with a window washing business (and hence the equipment) we got the plane down ok. It was unfortunate that no one managed to catch it, but at least its out of the tree!

n19htmare

My Feedback: (1)

I also used the bow and fishing line method. I spent 2 days throwing stuff at and trying to throw a twine and rope over... no luck.

about 5 days later I went out and bout a cheap bow and 40lb fishing line. Tied the line to the arrow, shot it and it caught the branch the plane was on, couple shakes and down came the slow stick.

lrtx1

For the Plane, Weed Eater string and a lock works very well. Trick is to pull the length of string, gets some of the coils out, it doesn't tangle in anything. It's what tree surgeon's use to get their ropes up in the tree when they don't feel like climbing. You then can attach a bigger rope if necescary to pull and shake the limb. Good luck.

On a side note, potatoe gun related, I used to shoot AA batteries out of a 1/2" galvanized conduit, about 10' long, with 140psi. Pretty wicked stuff. Not the smartest for the enviroment but fun none the less.

cold_reboot

My Feedback: (20)

I got a trainer stuck in the spindly little branches at the top of an oak tree about 40 feet up the day after christmas. Grabbed a long nylon rope I had after hanging my kids tree swing a ladder and and a telescoping tree trimmer. Tied one end of the rope to my belt loop, the other to the trimmer, climbed the tree and pulled the trimmer up, cut the offending branches and watched 'er drop. Course I didn't care about damage at that point since the wings had been sheared off a few inches out from the fuse. But some vines growing at the base of the tree caught it about 3 feet from the ground. Just bought a new wing and it still fly's today.

turbojimmy

I might try one of y'alls suggestions before I shoot it. It is in tact and would be nice to get it down that way. I haven't been up to the field in a couple of days - someone might have beaten me to it. There was quite a bit of interest in it during the last football practice.

The last attempt was with a lightweight nylon rope with a big, heavy hook tied to it. We couldn't get it high enough. I am so uncoordinated that I couldn't get it anywhere near the tree, nevermind the branch. My brother was able to get it very close but just not high enough. He then climbed a tree to where he was almost eye-level with the plane and tossed the hook/rope across. Too much stuff in the way and couldn't get to the right branch.

I'm going to head up there tomorrow night after work and ponder it some more.

Jim