Harpoon Gun Plane Rescue

by FliteTest | May 18, 2015 | (7) Posted in Just Fun

If you fly a water-loving craft this sight above may raise some painful emotions.

You've been flying all day and neglected to check the battery. Now your plane shows tendencies of a puppy at the dog park; it won't come home! 

There are several super creative methods hiding in the depths of Google for getting your plane back to shore.

A few of our favorites are:

  1. Position yourself downwind if possible. This will allow the plane to head back your way over time.
  2. Postion yourself down stream if possible. Same as above; the plane will naturally come back to you.
  3. A fishing pole fit with a weighted wiffle ball or tennis ball (anything that has some mass but will float).
The number one thing to always remember is: 

Unless you are 100% positive you have the stamina to make it to the middle of a lake and back, while holding your craft, don't go after it yourself.

The human ego will get you into trouble more often than you think. We hope we don't have to tell you, but your plane is never worth you possibly drowning. 

So we have our ModelAero stuck out on the lake with no safe way to retrieve it. Leave it to Peter to create the coolest way to wrangle a lost plane. 

How does a model tugboat sound? 

How does a model tugboat equipped with a 2-axis FPV harpoon gun sound!?

We know, he's awesome.

The idea is to sail the ship out to the plane, line up a nice shot with the DIY Micro FPV Setup, give it the old Moby Dick, then safely return with the plane in tow. 

A successful hit!

The plane came back in one piece! Once we saw the entrance wound we realized that Peter possibly hit the battery with the harpoon! 

You can't get closer than that! The harpoon was wedged directly between where the cells meet. 

So we learned a lesson here! If you decide you want to build a little harpoon gun to rescue your planes, make sure you aim for the tail!

Flying on the water is an undescribable experience. Just be aware of the added difficulties that come with it.

Be mindful of your battery time, preplan to put yourself on the best part of the water (down wind/stream) and NEVER put your life a risk to save a plane.

COMMENTS

gremlin88 on May 19, 2015
Or make a harpoon gun less powerful with a magnet on the end to attach to a larger magnet on the plane.
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kg4awv on May 18, 2015
Bad idea with the harpoon gun! Now you got to patch a hole in the plane. Next time put a grappling hook in the harpoon and fire it over the aircraft. You guys got lucky with the battery. That could have been an epic melt down on the lake.

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Ano Pilot on May 19, 2015
On board battery alarms are working well for me... what do you think they should be set to though? because HK's fixed 3.3v per cell always seems to result in an upset unbalanced lipo. I have some adjustable ones now.. so is 3.6v per cell better?
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andrewf on May 19, 2015
To retrieve gassers, we used a boat towing a large hook made out of metal coat hangers. Bent it into an X pattern with 4 hooks. To get it to float just punch it through a few foam craft balls
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ftwingnut on May 20, 2015
Awesome idea, but I agree, the grappling hook fired over the boat would probably be a safer idea. You mentioned the one guy that walked on water, but don't forget about the only other guy that did it. Peter the disciple walked out toward Jesus, but then lost faith and started sinking when he shifted his focus from Jesus to the waves around him.
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PropSpinner on May 19, 2015
Maybe rare earth magnets and a crane arm would be less destructive. Cool harpoon! you're one step closer to a float test website.
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#3 on May 19, 2015
How about plans for the boat?
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SwissFreek on May 19, 2015
Hey guys, what happened to the video podcast feed? It was going good for a few weeks but my feed hasn't had any updates in a while. I tried in subscribing and re subscribing but still nothing. Did that plan not work out? Shame, YouTube quality tends to be spotty for me, even on WiFi, was pretty cool to be able to watch in glorious HD on the go without eating up my data plan. Hope whatever the glitch is gets sorted out.
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johndeere23 on May 22, 2015
Where can I buy one of those tug boats at.

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Noobi1951 on May 19, 2015
I wish I had grown up (?) with you guys. The trouble Peter and I could have gotten into would have been epic!
I like the crane arm idea, but you would have to have a metal surface for the magnet to stick to.
Way to much fun, it must be illegal.
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Zeb Ludlow on June 3, 2015
I like the harpoon,but i like the grappling gun idea better. Hey Josh i was always wondering this,are you a Christian? If you are we are brothers in Christ !
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Harpoon Gun Plane Rescue