recovery craft
 

Hello; One of the Galliano Guys came to the lake today with an electric powered recovery craft. It was powered by two electric motors spinning 9x6 props, with huge air rudders right behind the props (pusher type) it had two skegs under the fornt of the floats, and a cow catcher design pusher bar on the front. It was about 30 inches long and maybe16 inches wide. We didn't have any flame outs today but it was sent out to bring in Con's trainer which ended up arrowing into the lake when the wing flolded up. I couldn't deal with the fuselage as only 2 or 3 inches were above the water. It couldn't bring in the wing either as soon as he turned down wind it would start tumbling on the surface of the water.

One idea offered was a boom that could be lowered ove a part of the plane. Might work for some kind of flame outs but not every possible crash site.

Any Ideas?

RE: recovery craft
 

This is similar to the scenario whenever anybody has gotten the idea to use a R/C boat as a recovery thing.
There's just not enough dexterity to hit the downed airplane in the right place and to keep it there while you power back to the shore. It gets VERRRY complicated VERRY fast while you start trying to figure out how to get the pieces.

Probably the best idea for a r/c retriever boat that I have seen is to use a conventional boat trailing a fishing line with a floating grapple. Drive around the downed plane, snag it with the grapple, and drag it back. No modifications required to the boat, and it works fairly well.

Rule number ONE for float flying: You need a boat-the man-carrying kind.

You might be able to get by with tennis balls on a string, long poles with hooks, r/c boat retrievers, or gravity wave generators, but ultimately (and that means at least half of the time) you will need to plunk your self into a man-carrying boat and row out to pick up the plane.

RE: recovery craft
 

Hello; Yes that is what we did in the end, row out and gather all the pieces. The recovery craft was designed to rescue R/C sailboats, and from what I hear, it doesn't do that very well either. We all got together and bought an electric thruster for our little pea-pod boat, best investment ever.

RE: recovery craft
 

we found out the same thing in Juneau, Alaska.
the string and grapple ended up with the plane and the boat caught in the weeds.
fishing poles worked untill you put a 1 ounce sinker thru your wing.
most of us only went swimming once. BRRRRRRRRR!!!!
the Inflatable or canoe worked best.

RE: recovery craft
 

Our club, the Propbusters, has been getting more and more into float flys to the point that we have 5-6 scheduled and several impromptu events every summer.

After 3-4 years of borrowing and making due, our club finally plunked down the money for a retrieval boat. After looking for a while, one of our members sold his trade-in to the club at a bargain price when he upgraded. After bringing the safety equipment up to date and going through the motor, we have about $400 in it and a trailer.

It is probably the best investment we've made. It certainly has made our float flys a lot easier and consequently a lot more fun.

RE: recovery craft
 

You can't beat the boat.:D

http://www.midmad.com/images/airplanes/3200.jpg

RE: recovery craft
 

Geeez Don! That poor EK4 .70!

Too bad you don't have floats on that thing!

RE: recovery craft
 

Glad to see you guys are wearing life jackets.

RE: recovery craft
 

Various ways to retrieve a plane

Photo 1 was grabbed from an earlier post here on RCU. It works as long as you have an intact plane. A lapful of sharp fragments might complicate things.
Photo2 is the way it's supposed to be: Taxi up to the beach and a helpful soul grabs your plane for you.
Photo 3 was an experiment with r/c boat retrieval.....not particularly successful.
Photo 4 is the 100% reliable electric-powered man-carying boat. 2-man crew lets one grab the plane while one concentrates on driving.

RE: recovery craft
 

I tried the fishing pole. That was a failure. Then I tried the RC boat. I thought I had the perfect plan. Tie fishing string to boat. Release line on pole. Drive boat around plane and drive back to shore. Pull fishing line in with plane. Except it turned out:

Run and get boat (plane floating away in wind), tie fishing line onto boat (plane floating away), drive out to plane (plane getting far away), circle plane and drive back to shore (fishing line pulls under plane and plane is so far away its pointless). My final retrieval method that day was to walk 30 minutes to other side of lake and wait additional 45 minutes until the plane washed ashore. This was a 1/2a size boat plane and although being cub yellow for a while I lost sight of it and didn't know if it sank or not. Apparently my monokote job was good and held the water out. The rc boat worked great pushing it the last 10 feet to the shore down wind.[:o] The funniest part was my landing was deadstick (ran out of fuel) but with the 10 mph winds I had a perfect landing 5 feet from the dock. I could have almost reached out and grabbed it. Should have just jumped in instead of running back to my car for the rc boat.

RE: recovery craft
 

Spyder, I really enjoyed reading that:D:D

RE: recovery craft
 

I use a very big ( 7 1/2' ) spinning rod with a big Shimano reel, 20# test line and a big floating lure with lots of gnarly looking teeth errr, hooks on it. I've only needed it once, and almost wore my arm out casting, but finally got it hooked around the float struts. The trick is to cast way beyond the plane, that way you can walk to the right or left as needed until you get the standing part of the line draped over the plane and start reeling. Luckily the lake I fly from is relativly small and the water warm. Just in case. By the way, I'm flying a 73" Kadet with GP 60 sized floats and a Saito 91 and it's loads of fun. I was getting bored with regular flying until I tried this and it's like a new start.

RE: recovery craft
 

I watched as a friend, in the retrieval boat , rowed out to an up side down Puddlemaster. The wind blew the plane back upright and the pilot started the electric motor with the transmitter throttle and took off and finished the flight while the retrival boat sat in the middle of the lake all alone!

RE: recovery craft
 

If I had done that, there would have been water inside which would have rushed to the tail with the acceleration of takeoff, thereby making it vastly tailheavy and it would have had a very short flight to the site of a lot of splinters floating in the lake.

Once it's on its back, bring it in, remove the wing, and make sure the plane is dry inside. I'm glad your friend was lucky. I would rather be lucky than good anytime.

RE: recovery craft
 

Puddlemaster ,while flying, is lower in the front than the back so the minute amount of water that got inside was forward of the balance point I guess. It is a flying boat with the motor mounted above the wing on a pylon. I remember he found almost no water inside the plane. Yes luck can be important.