LOST - Hexacopter

Well after a day of feeling sorry for myself I thought I better get off my rear and announce I've lost my hexacopter, although you already know this from N485TG (Trevor).

On Wednesday August 8th between 12:30 PM and 1:00 PM I launched my hexacopter from the school football field in Rogue River to do some aerial video.  About 2-3 minutes after launch the hexacopter looked to white out on me as if it went into clouds.

To make matters worse I had launched my cell phone in the hexacopter to get a Google My Tracks path of the flight.  Of course my HD video camera was also on board.

I'm not going to get into all the should haves and could haves, I've been through them all enough already.

I would also like to post some maps that I've marked with my flight line.  I have spent a lot of time reconstructing these and they are as accurate as I can make.

This image shows what I call scale 1 of the path I was on.



This image shows what I call scale 2 of the path I was on.



This image shows what I call scale 3 of the path I was on.



After I lost visual on the hexacopter I made a few maneuvers to get mack into visual.  These maneuvers will have affected some deviation off the flight lines in the images above.  How much is unclear since I do not know what the behaviour was if and when the hexacopter lost transmitter control signal.

I want to thank Trevor for wasting al least 3 hours of his time searching for the model with me.  We had never met until that day and anybody else would have left instead of walking around in the 100 degree heat on a needle in a haystack hunt.  I truly don't have words.

I will put together a flyer in PDF format today and post the link to it here in case anyone wants to print it and or distribute it.  I will print some and post them around Rogue River.  I also intend to contact the local Rogue River newspaper as one gentleman suggested to see what a ad will cost, but being out of work I may choose not to pursue that depending on the cost.  I have already resigned myself that I will not see the hexacopter again.

I just saw that N485TG (Trevor) has also created a thread about the lost hexacopter.  His images are showing a different flight line than mine.  Trevor's show a more northern flight line, but I can assure you that I was flying directly over the tall trees in a straight line when I lost visual.  I also lined up my line by moving to the bleachers and could see what looked like a roof line on the hills in the background.  That roof line is actually the power line towers on the hill in the background (see the arrow on the map).  This is how I determined the lines on my map images.

However, as I mentioned previously, the hexacopter will have deviated from that line due to my stick inputs and also whatever the behavior would have been if and when control signal was lost.

This map shows a perspective of the trees at the edge of the football field that I was flying over when I lost visual:

I've put together this PDF file with information. If you have any suggestions on how I can improve it please let me know.

PDF File:

http://southernoregonrc.com/sorcfiles/lost-hexacopter.pdf

Shorter two page version:

http://southernoregonrc.com/sorcfiles/lost-hexacopter-short-version.pdf

EDIT: Added shorter two page version of downloadable PDF file.

Your Android phone is on board?! You should be able to log in through your google account and force an install of wheres my droid and activate it. It will use the gps to map it's location. Look up the remote install stuff. I have never done it before.

Good idea.  I wish I would have thought of that Wednesday.  The battey died yesterday and I've suspended the cell phone account until T-Mobile can send me a new SIM card to avoid any potential charges.

Thank you Mike, I appreciate the offer.  I think I am just going to post some of my PDF print outs around town.

John - I just looked at your two and three page lost ads.  What you really need is a ONE page poster.  I've done a LOT of advertising and if there is anything I've learned it's to keep things very brief and to the point.  You only get your potential viewers attention for a few seconds so you meed to make everything count.  Your title and the placement of a huge picture is great.  The picture is the most important thing and yours would be a LOT better if it was not a direct side view.  You and I know what this thing looks like so that works for us, but what you need is a picture that views it from maybe 30deg higher so it looks like a hexacopter.    You're showing someone what you're looking for and they have no idea from just the name.  The huge wasted space for the camera and cellphone pictures is pointless.  Everyone knows what a cellphone looks like.  Anyway, they would already have to have found it and opened it to even see those.  Focus your one page on the title, the picture, and a very brief (non-technical) description of what it is along with what they should do if they see it.

Don't try to include the map.  It's too complicated, takes up space, and distracts from the more important message.  It might be good to put up a web page with more detail, additional pictures, and the map.  You could mention that link on your poster along with the email address you have now.  I really think the most productive thing you can do at the moment is get some posters out where people can see them, because its probably already been found.  I'd be handing these out, posting them in markets and making sure the fire and police departments get a copy right now.  A newspaper ad might be good, but if you do that limit it pretty much to the title, picture (corrected), and contact info.  Telling your story in an ad would just be expensive and fruitless.  Mike's idea of of contacting that guy that did the newspaper article and video is probably the most productive media option you have.  Posting a reward is always good!

Really sorry about this loss.  Hopefully someone will find it, see the poster, and turn it in.  I'll put up $100 toward a reward if that would help.

...Tiger

Hi John - I did prepare a one page flyer and a web page. The web page redirects the browser here instead of posting a complicated URL:

http://west-age.com/lost

FOUND IT

Ok so Grants Pass Irrigation was out on a Job in Rouge River when they found the Phone, Camera and the Tupperware Bowl. They brought everything back to there work and Charged the phone looked to see who was the last one that was to call the phone and see if they knew the person that had lost there phone. I told them that we had also lost the Hexacopter and so they went back out and looked and found the Hexacopter up in a tree and grabbed it. They said they had found it in this area in the picture, so we were REALLY off in the direction that we had thought it was in.

John wheres that video we all wana see it?  Also we all would like to see the GPS track as well.

Great NEWS, I would guess GPS Yoda is REALLY HAPPY to hear the news, great work guys

"Never give up, Never Surrender" - Galaxy Quest (1999)


[hr]

Thank you Trevor! We would like to invite you to dinner.

Cowabunga! My baby is back!

The hexacopter has some damage from what looks like a fall from a very high elevation. The "Snap-Ware/Tupperware" camera holder took the most serious damage and by the looks of it had it not been mounted the hexacopter itself would have suffered some serious damage.

As of now it looks like I've got one broken arm, one broken propeller and the top plate shows a fatigue fracture that would probably fly but might not be a good choice to do so.

I have not done any power up testing because we had some obligations tonight so tomorrow I will give the hexacopter a thorough check out. All in all I an extremely happy to have it back. I did not expect to ever see it again. There are good Samaritans out there!

Unfortunately there is no video. I was also very much looking forward to seeing what the camera captured. I am guessing what happened is that the camera ran until the SD card was full and when someone turned the camera of and on the file was overwritten.

I do have the My Tracks path:

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msi...l=42.439183,-123.178561&spn=0.015471,0.021586

As you can see it was off to the left of where we were flying. Looking back I can remember two instances where we both thought we had seen it heading in exactly this direction. I thought one instance was a large bird and the other was a high flying jet. Check out the link to the path and see for yourself. If you click the end point you can view a popup with a graph and further details about the flight. It looks like it did drop there at the end. How high do you think it was when it fell?

Wow, that is amazing. It was way off from where I would have guessed it would have been.

THATS for sure

If you zoom way in on the map at the end point you'll see a interesting pattern.

UPDATE:

Believe it or not, the LiPo battery from the hexacopter is fine despite what I thought was a nick into one of the cells. The video camera tested fine also and after some messing around with the corrupt file I was able to save this: