down in the woods

Get some deep woods off and start tramping, hopefully you have a landmark tree to help point you in the right direction.
Once waded through swampland for two days when a young lad mid-aired me.

If you live in Canada, give David "Ironsides" call - David has been doing sterling work recovering lost models in the woods with the use of his micro sized camera attached to a very light weight "Slow Stik" model - flys over the tress with camera pointing down. Check out David's many web pages. Also suggest use of a Lost Model inc low battery Alarm if slope soaring or flying over wooded areas = e.g. US$17.75 is cheap insurance. regards
Alan T.
Alan's Hobby, Model & RC Web Links

Build another one.
-Nick

Build a 1/4 scale C130 and spray the woods with agent orange. Wait a few days and you'll see your model.

Search for it. Here's how.
Take a similar sized object and set it down in the woods, see how far you can get from it and still see it 100% of the time.
Now go grab several friends and space them out on a line that far apart and walk through the woods keeping straight with compass. You will find it that way.
Failing that, see if anybody knows a local pilot and can get him to fly you over the woods to look for it. I've done it for friends in the past and would do so again if asked. It doesn't cost me much to fly and it's all logable so I'm happy to fly.

Learn to avoid trees.
Stand exactly where you were when it went down, sight the last time you saw it, and start walking straight for that point. A helper with a walkie-talkie and you with a long pole might help for him to guide you. It may be on the ground, and it may not, you never know.
Dr.1 Driver "There's a Hun in the sun!"

(i) wander around with the TX and listen for servo buzz
(ii) Hire a plane and fly over looking for it with a cellphone and a friend
(iii) buy a new one.

Cry?
treet> It was a great flight until it hit the top of some trees. It went down

go back to the pilot station and look for a positive landmark you can see and definitely relate to about where you plane went down. Walk (with compass if possible) to the landmark. Have a couple friends 10 feet on either side of your walking parallel with you.
Good luck, I have do that a time or fourteen.
-- Jim Branaum AMA 1428
Six_O'clock_High Target snipped-for-privacy@Guns.com

Illegal in the U.S. to use a cellphone from an airplane in the air J.D. to e-mail, pull the post

And look UP frequently! It might not have reached the ground and is hanging up in one of those trees.

I think that might be commercial aircraft only. I could be wrong.

| It was a great flight until it hit the top of some trees. It went down | in the deep woods. Now I can't find it. What do I do?
Lots of stuff ...
Before you lose the plane, put in a Hobbico `Air Alert' or something similar. $15 from Tower Hobbies. Will make a loud beep when the transmitter is off or idle for a long time.
Depending on the battery and receiver/servo situation, it may beep for *days*. Best not to trust that, however :)
Always put your name and number on the plane, preferably in more than one place, and preferably in some manner that water will not destroy. Somebody may find the plane six months after you give up and if there's no number, they won't know who to call ...
After the fact ...
Try to guess where the plane went down, and go looking for it. Bring help if you can find it. Your guess will probably be pretty far off, so you'll probably be looking for it for a while :)
If you have walkie talkies or a GPS, bring them. The walkie talkies are for talking to your buddies (`I found it!') and the GPS is for marking where it is if you find it but cannot reach it (it may be up in a tree, so you'll need a large stick or to cut the tree down.) A compass can be useful as well (for finding your way home.)
Wear long pants, long sleeved shirt and perhaps even boots and gloves. I don't know where you live, but the woods near our local field are very thick and will tear the hell out of anybody tromping through them. You may need to bring water as well.
If you can go searching for it quickly, bring your transmitter and wiggle the sticks -- you may hear the servos chattering, and if it's an electric, you may hear the motor start up (on the other hand, the prop may not be able to move, and so it starting up can burn the motor and ESC out if there's no fuse.)
Be sure to keep looking up! It's quite possible that the plane is up in a tree! (This seems obvious, but it's easy to forget.)
If you have a friend with a full sized plane, have him look for it. He may be able to see it from above when you can't from down below. I guess a R/C plane with a wireless camera would work too, but that doesn't sound very effective. But who knows?
Put up signs about your missing plane at the local club. There's a good chance if somebody honest finds it, they'll contact the club. (of course, if you put your name and number on it, this is less important.) Offer a reward!
That's all I can think of for now. Good luck!

Whaaat? I thought this was supposed to be a free country. What good reason would there be for not allowing cell phones in airplanes?

When my brother in law and I were trying to teach ourselves to fly, he took off with my 40 sized trainer from a field on the outskirts of town. Next to the field was a creek surrounded by trees, vines, and lots of thorns. The plane started porpoising a little bit and then stalled into the trees. We went to look for it immediately, but we could not find it. I told my cousin, and he leaped into action. He wasn't going to let a good airplane go to waste. So he got a machete, gloves, boots, and lots of heavy clothing, and we went to work on the problem. We found lots of brambly thorns, thorny brambles, and dense undergrowth with lots of thorns on it. We also found a tree stump full of bees. But we did not find an airplane. We decided that it must have been eaten by a possum or something.
More recently here in Kansas City where there are not so many thorns, I put a plane into the trees last year when the battery died. I went into the trees and looked around. I spied it sitting on the ground, so I looked down to my feet to see where to step in order to get to the plane and I saw the engine about three inches from my foot. I was lucky to find it, and probably more lucky not to step on it.
I had a friend who was ALWAYS putting planes in trees. I don't know how he did it. It seemed like he had that problem once a week sometimes. He stuck a 10 sized Buzzard Bombshell in a tree and since he is so out of shape I ended up climbing the tree for him. I had to shake the tree until it was swaying violently before the plane would come down. Another time he put a glider in a tree so high that he had to go home for his chain saw. He cut a big branch slowly so that it settled gently down and he could reach the plane sitting on it. Another time he had to use a fishing rod with a tennis ball on the end to get a plane down. He had it so bad that he even started brainstorming to come up with ways to make a portable plane retrieving pole from PVC pipe to carry in his car.
Does this information help you? Probably not. Just don't forget that your plane may be stuck 50 feet from the ground.

I'm sorry for the loss. Hopefully your receiver is still functioning so take you radio and as you move the controls, you might be able to hear the servos (assuming that you're close to the plane of course). Other than this you'd probably need the help of several of your friends to search the area. In future you may be better served by using a model beeper on your planes. Hobbico sells one for about $15(?).
Best of luck

FAA regulation about possible avionics interference. I actually looked that up. Supposedly there is also concern that the altitude may allow the cellphone to hit more than one repeater tower at a time and screw things up or create too much traffic or something.

Because from altitude, you hit multiple cells.

One way to conduct an effective grid search on your own is to start in on a line and mark it with toilet paper as you go along. Start the next line in sight of the first and so on. A compass bearing helps.
Waiting for some good witty lines.....................:-)