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So we had our first contest yesterday, and towards noon the wind was blowing pretty good as I put up my last flight in C Nos Gas.
My pretty Ramrod 750 was on the edge of a fast moving thermal, and after 2 minutes DTd right into the top of a 80 foot oak tree with few branches to climb until 20 feet up. Our MMAC club retrieval pole is only 40 foot, and with a 16 foot extension, was still at least 10 foot short. It is at 75 feet up and well lodged in the branches, and waving at me with the pretty red and yellow monokote covering.
So it is right behind a house with no one home, and a tree climber tells me it will cost $150 to bring it down. The model has $200 worth of materials in it, and probably will need major repairs once extracted.
How would you guys get this down?
My model is the red and yellow one in the attached picture. Just repaired it the past week, and it was flying well!
Fire an arrow with a string attached.
Ask the fire brigade if they need to brush up their skills.
Ring the local mountaineering club.
Throw a string/rope over the branches using a weight attached.
Hire a chain saw.
Wait for the weather to deteriorate.It will blow down eventually.Don’t forget your building time at $10/hour
I figure that if a ‘Senator’ was worth $100 and a Classic Glider $120 … a 750 Ramrod is well worth $150 …. As Doc says .. don’t forget the value of your time
If atruck can get near it, call the pwer company. Tell them there is a limb on a power line. When they arrive, ask them to push it out using their bucket lift and a hot-stick. Have a limb nearby, in case they need to substantiate the limb.
Send some beer to their house.After spending several days arranging for a tree climber to go back to the field, a 60 mile trip for me, 5 days had elapsed. The day of the insertion had 20 mph wind gusts from the NW, and the model was sitting at 70 something feet up. The next 2 days were calm, the following day had wind gusts from the South at 25 mph. Sometime on the 4 th day the right half of the wing had busted off, along with half the stab, and the model had fallen to a small limb at 42 feet.
So I arrived with the tree climber to find the wing and stab pieces laying on the ground, and the model close enough to reach with the club 40 foot retrieval pole. Was able to get it out in 10 minutes and the salvage is as shown in the attached picture.
The fuselage is reusable, the prop did not even get broken. The wing has been repaired so many times, that I will build a new one, along with stab and fin. So you need not worry about my Ramrod 750 at the remaining contests this season!
Lessons learned:
1. If you are flying within a mile of trees, you better find a tree climber who can come out and get the model out right away before it suffers tree damage.
2. It should be the clubs responsibility to have this information written down at the CD table.
(Our club now has several contacts for tree climbers, the one used also has a 55 foot bucket truck if you can get close to the tree with a vehicle. )3. Be ready with a $100 bill to get your model down.
4. Even better, don’t fly in a wind blowing toward trees.
Rather belatedly here’s how one highly effective retrieval method works. In my experience trying to toss stones over branches or throw ropes up is a quick way to get the model down in small bits.
First, get hold of a cheap glass bow, with a 25-30 lb. pull. Make some harpoons (forget all about arrows and feathers); I use 1/4 inch alloy tubing about 30″ long, with a notch filed into one end to take the bowstring (fill this with body filler to avoid cutting the string) and a hole drilled across a diameter near the same end. This takes nylon monofilament (old towlines work fine). At the other end use epoxy or bodyfiller to attach a 3″ length of steel tube about a half inch diameter, projecting an inch or so beyond the end of the alloy tubing. Fill this with lead and round the end on an abrasive disk on a power drill. Make several of these harpoons, as getting your sole specimen stuck up the tree can put a premature end to the retrieval operation. They weigh several ounces each and will reach about 80 feet upwards.
The nylon acts as a stabiliser to the harpoon; the weighted nose is necessary to make sure the harpoon will drag the nylon down over the branch you’ve shot it over. You may need to gently jiggle the line to help the harpoon to come down. In use simply pile the nylon on the ground (bottom end at the bottom of the pile!) and the harpoon will pull the line quite happily up. No need to use spools or anything complicated here. The KISS principle works fine.
If you need to do some heavy pulling on a branch, you can use the nylon to haul a much heavier cord or rope over the branch. Try to keep ‘helpers’ well clear, as someone standing on the nylon can really mess up a shot.
If you need to make further shots DO NOT try to haul the harpoon back over the branch; that’s a sure way to lose a harpoon. Instead, untie the nylon and pull it down.
To add to Buster’s excellent post: do not make the mistake of trying to “coil” the nylon. This requires twisting the line in the direction of the coil in order to make it lie flat. Doable, but a hassle.
Much simpler to pay the line out in a figure eight. Imagine the “8” laying on it’s side and the “harpooner” standing at the crossing but feet not on the line.
Fit RCDT.
CHE
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