The search (for a 33%)

[selleri]

Last Saturday a 33% Krill Katana went into fail-safe and subsequently made a break for it from my airfield, despite heroic efforts and a car chase we lost sights of it over the lava fields about the same time as the gas ran out on it. Understandably the owner was a bit upset so search parties were dispatch in effort to locate the downed model.

As I presume you are not familiar with the territory I'll give a quick description of it, the area were the model disappeared into is made up of aa lava and very rough(and sharp) and hard to walk through. So it was decided that the search would have to be performed from the air using what ever full size airplane/helicopters we could muster for the cause.

Here is the map that search parties were given, the red cross is about were the plane was last seen and I recently added the green one were it was found yesterday. Red dot is our airfield.

[selleri]

Here is the map that search parties were given, the red cross is about were the plane was last seen and I recently added the green one were it was found yesterday. Red dot is our airfield.


By now we knew that we would need to dispatch people on land to get to the remains and about 1800 hours six brave lads ventured into the lava field ready to face what ever lay ahead and any polar bears or other creatures, well not really but people have been a bit paranoid since two polar bears ventured inland last month, and lot of erroneous reports have been made.

The first obstacle was were we parked


After an hour walk(this was to cover 1 mile) we saw something white, we thought about calling the emergency services and report a polar bear but foolishly proceeded as this was close to the location found from the air.






Almost like it had been put down there. Hardly any damage to it, a little bit under the right wing and a broken prop.




Leatherman was put to good use.


After disassembling the plane we headed back. One of the many reasons it took us an hour to walk 1 mile and not the worst part of the way.


Happy explorers on the "parking lot". In direct line the plane ended up 3.1 miles(5 km) from the airfield.


But what could have caused the plane to venture into the realms of fail-safe??? If you know the 900 RX you might be able to see it in this picture!


No? Well then this should give you a clue!



Indeed, the crystal decided to leave the party and go on its own down to the basement...
Of course the RX wasn't to thrilled so he decided to hold everything and fly around hoping that the crystal would return to the party. As you've seen above that didn't happen.

Few more pictures can be seen here.

Thanks to the many that assisted us in the search

PS
I wonder if I should ask the owner to buy a lottery ticket for me.

[Olli-Matti]

Glad to see the Katana (and the rescuers too) surviced its adventure with that little damage!

Extraordinary story indeed

[wttiger42]

Thats all the damage??? WOW... i was expecting to see a pile of plane.

I have the same receiver, I was warned about the crystal popping out. Its got some tape around it now.

Thats awesome you guys found the plane and see it suffered minimal damage.

Its always cool to see images taken from all the different fields around the world where people fly. Most are different as night and day.

[selleri]

The tape used on this one must have left for the party earlier, I guess it will be taped a tad more next time

[SleepyC]

WOW.. HOLY COW!! That is awesome!! Man...

You guys are a TEAM!
I have to ask, was the mission impossible theme playing in the background?

Congratulations for getting that plane back, congratulations on finding the problem, and MANY MANY thanks for sharing such an amazing story!! (With pictures to boot!!)

AWESOME!

[selleri]

	Quote: Originally Posted by SleepyC
	I have to ask, was the mission impossible theme playing in the background?

It will be when I get the video material to edit

[TazmanianDevil]

WOW Sverrir that is an IM!
I am glad that everything is in tact and not broken...next time check list everything when you fly that babe, most likely that you will move to the 2.4...well no crystals there:-)

[selleri]

Not mine Adi, this is the 33% my mate has

I've got the Weatronic in mine so no crystals that can leave me there... but you are correct, 2.4 is in my future.

[selleri]

Well, time to put an end to the story

Katana came out to the field this evening.


This time the owner wanted to be sure that the crystal would stay plugged in.

...maybe with a little help from me

And up she went. The full size in the background is the plane that was used to search for and locate the Katana when she went AWOL. Nice coincidence.


Always good looking.


The owner was quite happy.

[ericb]

That is cool. Amazing that you found it in that condition. Very nice plane indeed.

[almmendes]

That's a story that if you didn't had any pictures I wouldn't believe it.

Better consider yourself the luckiest RC pilot because those things don't happen twice. Play the lottery this week. You never know...

[selleri]

The owner was told to go and buy lottery ticket 2 weeks ago when the numbers hadn't come up for 6 weeks in a row... I guess he used up all his luck on the Katana as he didn't get anything

[Andrew Bird]

Wow - great story. I managed to throw a crystal from a heli once during some rather violent tic tocs - needless to say it didn't escape quite as well as that Katana!

[selleri]

Just released a video of the mission >

Click the play button to start.
Right click here to save the video