medicap

My Feedback: (11)

Good morning all. I have recently lost 2 airplanes at our flying strip. We are surrounded by corn and it is difficult to know exactly where the plane went down. Even more difficult to know where you are in the middle of a corn field.

I have both a 4.8 rx batt and a 6volt rx battery if that makes any difference.

Looking for some solution with weight, cost, size, effective distance, etc etc etc. part of the considerations. I know there are GPS solutions for lost hunting dogs but that is pretty pricey

BTW, this forum is amazing! You people out there in RC land are rocket scientists.

Thanks, Steve.

Intruder38

Cheap, but effective solution is the Hobbico battery monitor/lost plane alarm. Insert between throttle servo and receiver, it will sound off if no input for 10-seconds or so. Not terribly loud, but effective once you are in the general area. Couple that with the long standing recommendation to lay your radio on the field with the antenna pointing at the last point you saw the plane and you have a pretty good chance of locating your lost plane fairly quickly.

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

The best thing to do is: In spite of how badly you feel at the time of impact, FREEZE! Immediately make a mental note of where it went down. If you know a crash is imminent, call attention to it so others can do the same and also verify the position.

Next, walk out into the field to the approximate spot (bring a cell phone). Call someone at the flightline and have them fly a plane out to the area and circle the spot where it went down.

Now walk "against the grain" - That is, don't walk down the rows, walk across them and look both ways down each row till you see it.

Luchnia

My Feedback: (21)

A guy at our club makes alarms that beep very loudly. If we are within about 60 or more feet (sometimes hundreds of feet) of the plane we can hear it. It is really a great tool to have on your plane and each time has taken us straight to the downed plane within minutes.

We had one lost the other day and the fellow drove down the road and stopped about every hundred yards or so until he heard the beep. He then zero-ed in on it and there his plane was. As the other poster stated you can get the Hobbico plane alarm and I am sure other companies make some.

Lnewqban

I have two of this and they have worked great for locator and low battery alarm:

http://www.c-tronicsinc.com/Product-FlightAlarm.htm

They are inside my fuselage and can he heard very far away.

For orientation, you can use a compass and also a pole so others can see how close you are to the spot where the plane fell.
Having two spotters in different positions help with triangulation.

Dzlstunter

If you have made a mental note of where the plane went in (perhaps you had the presence of mind to lay your transmitter down in front of you with the antenna pointed in the direction it crashed?), you can then use an orienteering compass to establish a straight line of search.

You can pick one of these up in the sporting goods section of your local Wally World for about 5-6 bucks. It has two arrows on it. You to set an adjustable arrow directing you along the path you want to take while holding the compass so that the magnetic arrow is always pointing north. The trick is to set the adjustable "path" arrow on the compass correctly, then start out from where you set it, never straying from that line of march.

You almost surely will have to cut through on an angle with the corn rows in order to maintain your direction accurately. Pay no attention to your "gut feeling" of what direction to go! This should take you within 50-100 feet of the model, which may be on either side of your line.

It helps to have a couple of guys on each side of you following along, but spread out some, checking down the rows as you go. Without the compass, we never would have found my last "corn field landing" location.

Good luck, Dzl

Steve Percifield

My Feedback: (14)

For the ones that are lost.

See if any club members are pilots. Sometimes they can fly over the area and get a sighting.

Notify the farmer that there are aircraft in his field. He might spot them while picking and save them from going through te picker

If you haven't already, organize a group search with club members. Sometimes several walking 5 or 6 rows aprt, in an organized search can be successful.

Edwin

My Feedback: (2)

A guy in our club used his gps to find his plane. He pointed where it went down and followed it into the dense brush. He found his plane that had been there for two days. I would like to have a locater start sounding after a set time (15 minutes or so) and have its own battery. Sort of a blackbox setup. My crashes tend to scatter parts and the receiver and battery usually part company in a worst case scenario.
Edwin

airbusdrvr

They guys in my club are lucky as I own a full size J-3 and have found 8 of the ten or so planes I have looked for. And the price is reasonable. No cost if I don't find it and a 1.75L bottle of Tequilla if I do. However, last month one of our members lost two planes and my aerial and many member's ground search turned up nothing. He really knows how to hide them

-pkh-

My Feedback: (2)

Here's what I've done:

1) Install the [link=http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXSZ87&P=7]Hobbico Air Alert beeper/monitor[/link] in your plane.
2) Make a note of where it goes down to help define your search area.
3) Bring your TX with you, wiggle the sticks every so often, listen for servo movement.
4) Walk a grid pattern in the area you think it might be.
5) Look long and hard! After covering the expected "landing" area several times, start looking further out.

BillyGoat

Good points listed.

When somebody finally finds a plane that had been elusive for a few days, they almost always say "it was much further out than we thought."

fredsedno

I have an alarm which I removed from a "smoke detector", not smart enough to figure out how to wire it for use
in a model. It's light & loud, any suggestions? not the sharpest tack in the box fredsedno

j.duncker

My Feedback: (2)

The competition free flight guys use these sort of things [link=http://www.walstonretrieval.com/main.htm]CLICKY[/link]

Not cheap but for competition FF many people think they are essential.

Lnewqban

This circuit works with the 9 volts battery and the buzzer that are inside any house smoke detector:

http://www.sentex.ca/~mec1995/gadgets/adl.htm

The other parts are available at Radio Shack.

Sessholvlaru

Get a Loc8tr. Best money ever spent, has helped many guys find planes at our field. http://www.loc8tor.com/Store/

fredsedno

Thanks for the suggestions. fredsedno

Edwin

My Feedback: (2)

Great find. That gadget is exactly what I'm looking. A delayed timer with its own power. Gotta try it out. Just like a dumb black box.
Edwin

Oberst

I crashed a Goldberg Skylane 62 and lost it in a hay field due to a servo failure at high speed. I looked for it for 2 hours in the blistering muggy sun while I was eaten alive by Black Flies. [:@] I think it was about 95* or so with the humidity.

I finally gave up, and about two weeks later I got the phone call from the farmer. He was cutting the hay and he found my plane deep in the ground with the battery destroyed. He looked inside the plane and found my phone number in it.

Of course I was flying alone that day, but if I wasn't I would have found it much sooner.


Pete

Lnewqban

One tip about the gadget that I have posted:

The LM555 timer is sensitive to heat, so be cautious and fast when soldering.

I damaged one for overheating.[]

matadco

My Feedback: (1)

Our field is 6 acres in the middle of 180 acres which this year the farmer planted in corn. The corn gets up about 5-6 feet tall. Usually there are several around who help spot exactly where the plane went down into the corn. We use a long flagged pole and cell phones to guide someone into the corn to the spot. Usually within about 15-30 minutes the plane is located. This year we have had about 10 go down in the corn and we have retreved all within that time frame.