Lost model alert! Reward if found!

Craftydan

Hostage Taker of Quads
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Did they add "reward if found" on the label?

No?

Dang. Gone for good.

Maybe they should keep an eye on CraigsList:Tehran ?
 

Balu

Lurker
Staff member
Admin
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If it was found by an RC guy, he probably has already dismantled it to use the fuselage for something else.
 

Craftydan

Hostage Taker of Quads
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It's a RQ-7 Shadow lost in Arizona, South East of Tucson . . . not a Model of an RQ-7, mind you, but the real thing.
 

rockyboy

Skill Collector
Mentor
sorry I don't live near there:( I hope you find it though.

We're all laughing a little 'cause it's an Army Tactical Unmanned Aircraft system costing about $15.1 million dollars each (or $1.5 million each depending on news source). Not really a model, but the news article reads a lot like something we would post for a lost quad.

You'd think they would put a lost model alarm or something in it when your budget gets over a couple million. I mean, I usually do that when I get over $100 into a model :)
 
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PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Yes the REAL aircraft the Army uses is what has been lost. The funny thing is them having to ask the people they were test spying on to find it in my book.
 

makattack

Winter is coming
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Yah, if you read the Ft Huachuca fb post I linked to above you'll find these great quotes:

At 5:16 p.m. Jan. 31, a Shadow RQ-7Bv2 unmanned aircraft system launched from Hubbard Landing Zone on the Fort’s East Range and lost connectivity with the ground station. Despite considerable efforts to locate the missing Shadow, it has not been found and is thought to have disintegrated upon impact somewhere in the local area.

If anyone has information related to the missing Shadow UAS, please call the Fort Huachuca Installation Operations Center 520.533.2291 or the Military Police Desk at 520.533.3000.

Some of the fb replies are great too:

The Shadow encorporates a Retun Home Logic within its autopilot. If this was a true dual uplink loss and the Air Vehicle is not at the loaded return home point then it was either loaded improperly or there was a significant mechanical or flight control failure.

You'd think they'd put a beacon on these things to track...

Except a beacon can be seen by intended targets, these things aren't delivering Christmas presents....

<----monitoring Craigslist

If it was a cloudy day then you wouldnt see the shadow. Too soon?
U.S. Army Fort Huachuca: We see what you did there, but too soon.

Someone has an issue with the technical discussions:
Jeez-o Pete, people! Have none of you ever taken an OPSEC class?!?
 

TazRC

Obsession, not hobby
I think I saw it fly over my house with 3 Mexicans sitting on top! Damn, they figured out how to get over the wall! :D
 

makattack

Winter is coming
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Good news! It was found stuck in a tree... in Colorado. Those pesky trees jump out of no where even with military drones. Now...about that matter of whoever programmed their home post (joint base Lewis-McChord in Washington state) as the return to home location... always check your C.R.A.P including programming, just like the Joshes say.

http://m.sfgate.com/news/article/Ar...-on-Arizona-flight-found-10921837.php?ref=yfp

BTW, coincidentally, a forum member/FT fan HildaFlyer (who I've met at FTFF and lives in the same state I'm in) built a model of this and experienced a similar RF drop when he was flying one version:

https://flitetest.com/articles/rq-7-shadow-scratch-build

Update:

http://gazette.com/army-drone-lost-in-arizona-found-west-of-denver/article/1596444

Speculation is that they let it fly too far downwind and it couldn't get back! Hahah...

The diminutive drone may have been a victim of the jet stream. Weather data for Jan. 31 shows strong, warm winds blowing into Colorado from the desert southwest. The powerful jet stream wind can grab high-flying drones and turn them into long-distance gliders.

And it's not Colorado's first experience with a misguided drone flying far beyond its stated range.

In 2015, Fort Carson controllers lost track of a 4-pound RQ-11 Raven drone and it wandered 12 miles, all the way to a yard on Alexander Road between Uintah and San Miguel streets in Colorado Springs. That's nearly double the Raven's stated range of 6.2 miles.
 
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PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Hrrm they have a separate RTH link.. I guess them pilots did not do the proper DJI shuffle before launch. All else fails look at the pretty blinky lights before take off.... NOOBS