fmw

I assume you guys like to look at photos of WWI warbirds so here's a little something from the Royal Aircraft Factory that will get its maiden flight in about three hours. Wish me luck.

Don Sims

Great looking bird! Best of luck!

rcers

I loved mine - suspect you will be just fine!

degreen60

Mine has been rebuilt several times. Nice thing about when they have to be rebuilt you can change the paint scheme. Mine is now an AEF 25th squadron C flight plane.

fmw

The maiden flight went perfectly. The plane took off smoothly, needed only a couple clicks of aileron and rudder trim and landed reasonably well with a very slow speed nose over in the grass. Obviously I would need a little practice bringing her down perfectly. The second flight, however, was a disaster. I lost complete control over the corn field and lost it there. I don't know what failed but there was no control suddenly after about 2 minutes of flight. The plane went into spin from about 200 feet and flew into the 10 foot tall corn - somewhere. Too bad. Pretty model.

dbcisco

That is so sad.

79CJ

Sorry about the crash fmw - hopefully you can get out there and at least find it to salvage the electronics.

degreen60

You know anyone that could fly over the corn field and see if the plane is visible from the air? If the field is close to me I know someone that would take a look.

fmw

We spent an hour looking for her in the corn field. The only way to find them there other than dumb luck is to active the motor and servos and listen for any sounds. There were no sounds. Not a suprise since there was no motor and control before the crash. I don't mind crashing them nearly as much as losing them. I lost a receiver, ESC, motor, and 4 servos that could have driven another model. That's the painful part. It's part of the hobby. I most likely need to blame myself for whatever caused the power failure. I'll never know unless the model is recovered at harvest time.

Fred

Wildflyer

Fred,

I know how you feel, I put a nitro quickie 500 racer, into the trees at the field, it took me a week to find it, I had 5 people looking one day, and we finally found it 500 feet from where I would have thought it hit.

Yours may be further away than you think it is.

Get as many of your friends as possible, and start with 1 person every 3-4 rows depending on how thick the corn is, and walk the entire length of the field, then turn around and move to the next rows, you will find it, unless someone else did, but I would hurry. You may need to explain what you are doing to the owner of the corn, or someone else.

Just don't give up yet, that is too nice a plane to lose, or let it get "harvested". If you have a local hobby shop, they probably know people that will help.

After you find it, have your helpers over for a BBQ, thats how I paid my friends. Good luck. I'm sure you will find it, then let us know how the plane is.

gramps2361

Sorry about the loss that is a nice looking bird. Myself get a pole taller than the corn stocks, and put a orange flag on it. Go back to where you were standing have a buddy with the pole and guide him to about the area the plane went in. Plant that pole and then start making circles working away from the pole. That pole will be your reference point as you make larger circles around it.
Having 2 to 3 folks spaced apart going in circles around the pole will give ya more eyes to look around.
Hopefully that red will get picked up by someone.
I have done this when looking for game that has been shot works great at locating the animal or trying to pick up a blood trail. I always have that reference point to look back at and help keep me in the correct area.
Good luck and don't give up.
John

kevinm

i feel the pain and fear the corn- i havent and dont see me putting it over one of my regular fields cuz of the 7 ft tall corn (as much as id like to see it skimming the corntops)

cliffh

My experience watching folks recover airplanes is just the oposite of "Wildflyer"'s. Most people start searching too far away. The airplane is almost always closer than people think.

There are some very good beepers to help you find a plane that gets lost....as long as the battery is still hooked up.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXSZ87&P=ML

This is just one of them. It has saved a couple of my wife's airplanes. We live and fly in farm country, so we know about corn. I also know that even a bad crash into corn can have very little damage as the corn cushions the crash. You just need to find the plane

I know, that is the difficult part

Cliff

degreen60

You might want to check with the farmer before you take people into his field. I know one farmer that does not get along with the nitro RC club that has a field next to his. He chargers about $300 to get planes back.

TM4197

Anyone you know who has a video cam? if so, place the cam flat on the bottom of the wing shooting straight down. We found one in a marsh once this way. The plane showed up amazingly well. GOOD LUCK!!

Heli Jim

If you know a private pilot, he might be willing to give you a short plane ride
over the field to help locate it. A couple people on the ground and you in the
air with some cell phones, and you should be able to lead the people right to it.

fmw

The corn field belongs to the farmer from which the club leases the flying field. The farmer is an RC flyer himself and an officer of the club. My suspicion is that the weather will drive the plane toward the ground. When he harvests, he may well find the plane. He's found others in the past. If so then I'm likely to get a plane back with a ruined receiver, battery and servos. We'll see how it goes. Life goes on. I wish I had gotten more than one good flight from it. So it goes.

dbcisco

This thread went from "porn" to "corn" real quick.
Sorry, I couldn't help it.

Voltron

I lost my Goldberg Eagle in a cornfield a few years ago. It took four of us almost three hours before we found it. It was standing straight down between the cornstalks with no damage at all.

degreen60

If you get the plane back you maybe supprised to find everything still works. Weather does not bother receiver and servos that much if there is no power to them and it sounds like you lost a connection to the battery which might save it too. I lost a plane in a tree for over 6 months(wind finally blew it out). Only lost one cell of the lipo. I also have RC ships. I had a couple sink. The water did hurt the nicads but I let everything else dry out good before applying power. Receivers and servos always worked after drying out.

MustangMan

One of the last steps in circuit board production is a "wash". As long as power is not on while it sits out in the weather the electronics will usually be unharmed. Mechanical components, especially bearings in motors and servos, are vulnerable to moisture accelerated rusting.

I once had a model stuck in a tree for six days including some rain, with power until the lipo finally gave up, and I recovered and reused everything except the lipo. I did remove the heat shrink from the ESC and the case from the receiver and carefully scrub the green fuzzies off the components with a nylon toothbrush and rubbing alcohol and then let everything dry thoroughly for a day. I'm still using the ESC five years later. I retired the receiver when switched to 2.4 gHz.

fmw

I haven't recovered the SE5 but a neighbor was nice enough to return a 3D plane that finally blew down from a tree. It had been in the tree for 4 months. The battery was gone, of course, but everything else worked perfectly. I put a new rudder on the plane and it flies just like it did before getting caught 100 feet in a tree. At corn harvest time my SE5 will either be found and returned or chopped up in the harvester. We'll see how it goes.

kenchiroalpha

Hi fmw
So sorry to hear this
She was quite fetching
Best of luck with the SAR
Take care
Hank

fmw

She's home!!! The club had pylon races yesterday and a mid air collision sent one of the models into the cornfield. Luckily for me, one of the teenagers looking for it got disoriented and somewhat lost in the field. When they finally talked him back to flying field he had my SE-5 in his hand. As it turns out, it crashed because the battery fell out. The battery was nowhere to be found around the model. The battery hatch was at home and I've put it back on the model. I forgot to put the hatch on when I sent it up for the second flight.

It spent several weeks in the cornfield and had plenty of rain showers on it during that time. it was dirty and a little windex cleaned it right up. I put in a new battery and everything works perfectly. The wings were a little out of kilter and a little pressure brought them back in line with each other. A little ding in the lower right wing tip was fixable without even removing the covering. I reglued the broken balsa part through a litttle hole and then reheated the covering to tighten it. I straightened out a crooked horizontal stab by debonding it, and regluing it with a small wedge. An animal chewed up the tires so I wasn't able to fix that. I'll fly it without tires until I can get replacements.

I'm amazed. Really no harm done and the repairs only took about 20 minutes.

TM4197

FANTASTIC!!! There is a RC god!