Que Sera Sera

Cyberdactyl

Misfit Multirotor Monkey
I was flying tonight in my backyard and had my back against a wall of trees. My property backs to thousands of acres of thick woods.

Was flying rather high, maybe 300 feet getting some sunset video, and was descending hard from the front of the property that is open. Came in a little high and deep and was worried I would overshoot into the trees behind me and gunned it to pop over. It was a little too much and lost sight of it because I was standing too close to the trees. I hit the throttle hard hoping it would appear at an angle I could see it. No luck.

I obviously shot it deeper into the woods. I gave an attempt to find it, but I had held the throttle close to wide open for maybe five seconds, so it could be anywhere in a ten acre area. The REALLY bad part is I had my Foxtech V3 onboard.

Easy come easy go. . . :mad:

gone.jpg


I'm so confident it's gone for good, I just placed another order for parts. :p
 

Billchuck

Senior Member
It's probably too late now, but when I had to play Where's the Tricopter in some tall grass I just kept disarming it repeatedly. Each time it beeped, helping me locate it.
 

kah00na

Senior Member
Free quadcopter in the woods!?! I'm in my car driving to North Carolina to find it!! Woohoo!

......

Although not as bad as you, I was flying my tricopter and one of the motor wires came unsoldered from the bullet connector mid-flight. It was only 6 foot off the ground so it wasn't a real bad crash. I resoldered it and replaced 2 propellers, then flew some more and hit a tree and then the tricopter did cart wheels and broke 2 more propellers. I replaced them and then flew some more and got too close to another tree and trimmed off the ends of one of my propellers. Shesh... My last order from HobbyKing included about 30 propellers so I should be set for another week anyway.
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Cyberdactyl

Misfit Multirotor Monkey
It's probably too late now, but when I had to play Where's the Tricopter in some tall grass I just kept disarming it repeatedly. Each time it beeped, helping me locate it.

It was getting pretty dark, but I ran fairly deep into the woods and listened for the beeps KK2s make when they are unattended after a few minutes. If it was fall or winter I might have had a ghost of a chance seeing the general area it came down. But now the foliage and tree canopy is as thick as it gets.
 

Johan

Senior Member
It was getting pretty dark, but I ran fairly deep into the woods and listened for the beeps KK2s make when they are unattended after a few minutes. If it was fall or winter I might have had a ghost of a chance seeing the general area it came down. But now the foliage and tree canopy is as thick as it gets.

Oh, that is awful! Sorry to hear that.
 

Cyberdactyl

Misfit Multirotor Monkey
While it was painful as hell, it's a good excuse to get a GoPro Black.

That Foxtec V3 1080P was a mini CMOS and ultra light and extremely finicky to get halfway non-jellfied video. If you notice above, I had to isolate it like crazy. I haven't had a "better half" with the disapproval gene in a few years, so I went for the GP3Blk. :rolleyes: :cool:

Who knows, this fall I may spot it. :cool:
 

SubZero-AK

Frozen Idiot
Maybe you can find someone near by with an FPV craft so you can search in the general area from the air....Or, hurry up and get your new one put together and launch the search yourself.
 

Cyberdactyl

Misfit Multirotor Monkey
That's the plan. But I'll wait till late October. It would be a literal needle in haystack now. It's nothing but thick green from the ground to 80 feet.
 

Tritium

Amateur Extra Class K5TWM
That's the plan. But I'll wait till late October. It would be a literal needle in haystack now. It's nothing but thick green from the ground to 80 feet.

Yea but it may be sitting in the Top of one of those trees and with the bright colors would be very noticeable from above.

Thurmond
 

Cyberdactyl

Misfit Multirotor Monkey
I wish I had just shut it down as soon as I lost my line of sight. Then I would have been under 100 feet away. But I thought I could bring into view by going up high. I did leave the pitch and roll alone, but obviously it was tilted towards the woods a bit, and I just exacerbated the problem. So it ended up being a pilot-induced fly-away. :(
 

xuzme720

Dedicated foam bender
Mentor
Yeah, hindsight and all. If it had come back into sight it wouldn't even be an issue, or if you'd chopped it and broke something, you'd be asking yourself "maybe I should have punched the throttle..."

Point is, these things happen to us.
Ahh, who am I kidding? This sucks that you lost the multi and I know how I would feel if it were mine. I'd rather have it in my hands and have to buy some parts than just gone!
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
Its out there, somewhere, probably closer than you think. Look at it as a treasure hunt! Do you a camera you can hang on another aircraft and try some aerial recon?
 

Cyberdactyl

Misfit Multirotor Monkey
I have a GoPro coming, and my tricopter.

IF I did that, I would go to the few openings in the trees and just go up...yaw around and come down. I'm not going to venture out over heavy woods with a new GoPro, no matter how much confidence I have in my tri, unless it was FPV so I could at least see where I came down.

I may also look into moving to APM or getting a GPS locator.

Here's what I'm dealing with IF I'm lucky and it came down "close"

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