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This is my first post so thanks in advance everyone. I have been learning to fly all summer, have been flying quite far / high by sight, regularly going up to 1/2 mile away and taking videos of all that with an on board stand alone (not linked to the ground) camera. But now I'm hitting the limits of the flying I can do by seeing the plane and am gearing up to go full FPV.

BUT I lost my plane this weekend, soaring in a remote area over a mound about 1/2 mile away, again flying by sight. I just lost track of the time, 100% my mistake, and ran the battery down. The plane came down in a thick woods 1/2 mile or so away. It could be in a few hundred acres of THICK woods and brush... it could be lost for good but I'm going to try again this weekend...

I have started building my second plane and as I get more money into all this I want to have a way to locate and save some of the equipment it in the event of a crash or other failure.

I've already read a few things about OSD systems and I am a bit confused already.

My question is, at a high level - what are some of the best, easiest (and yes cheapest) systems I can purchase and use to locate my next plane and equipment in the event of a crash or failure of some kind? I regularly fly in some very remote areas, and would like to continue that!

I am a amateur radio guy also, thinking about options as simple as a radio beacon I can use a directional antenna with... to something that would send a packet radio gps location... to yes a simple OSD that would just be transmitting a current GPS location.

Again, I'm an open book at this point and open to suggestions although starting out simple and going from there is kind of my usual plan.

What are you all doing out there to locate downed planes? I know crashes will occur but I'd like to be able to recover as much as possible after I get a few more dollars into the next FPV project plane.

Thanks in advance!

Great question! I'm looking for something similar, the simpler the better. I assume that once I get fully into FPV, I'll have an OSD that will give a GPS signal, but until then I'd like to find a directional radio beacon. I've heard that people in model rocketry use something simple, but I have yet to find it. I saw an online commercial about a device that would be used to track keys, remotes and pets with a small fob. I didn't buy it because it ~$130, though that did include 5 fobs. I'm still looking.
If you're a radio guy perhaps you could rig something up and sell it. I'd buy one.

Wow, thanks SquireM!

A quick google search on "model model rocket locator" gave me lots of information - ranging from audio buzzers for rockets that are quite inexpensive (I did not think of something as simple as an audio buzzer). That could probably have saved my plane this weekend.

And this seems to be exactly what I am looking for, not cheap but depending on how much money I get into my next airplane(s) it may not be that expensive at all if it saves some gear:

http://www.walstonretrieval.com/main.htm

I suppose that was so easy I'll try a web search for "model plane locator" and see what happens?!

I have a GPS device called a "tiny tracker" that hooks up to 2 meter ham radio transmitters and can be used to send a GPS location via "packet radio". I forgot I had that because someone gave it to me because they couldn't get it working and I have not had the time to look at it yet. All that is too big for my airplane but hummm????

http://www.byonics.com/tinytrak/

But those audio rocket locators, and lots of common sense (not flying too far / too long) over densely wooded areas might just get me back on track.

A neighbor gave me an old plane that had an audio beacon. It was only supposed to go off if it lost radio transmitter contact, but was broken and just went off all the time. I got rid of it because I got tired of hearing it.
Then I lost my plane in a soybean field and can't find it. The audio beacon would have been perfect for that.
I agree with you about the tracking devices. They might be worth it if you had several hundred dollars loaded into your plane. That said, I wouldn't have crashed if I had been flying FPV (I got disoriented). In addition, if I had crashed while flying FPV I'd at least have a better idea of where I went down.
Please post what you end up going with.
Good luck.

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How about this one?
http://www.keyringer.com/

Oh wow, that KeyRinger is going to get ordered before my next plane goes in the air.

it works up to 300 feet, that should take care of most areas - yea, I know all about soybean fields also..

So I think with something as simple as that keyringer and everything else I learned about setting a timer to limit flight times... checking my batteries in my transmitter more often, and maybe just being a little more careful over an unbelievably dense oak forest.. I will be a lot less likely to loose my next plane.

I know I can get within 300 feet of my plane at some point.

Then I'll be a lot less likely to be sitting here and thinking "grrrr I can't belive I did that and can't wait for Saturday morning to get back out there and look for it"!!!

It's not so much the plane, it is the camera, lipo and other re-usable items...

Grrr I can't believe I did that.

There is a much better product that exists already and does exactly what you are looking for. It emits a beacon that can be heard with a walkie talkie

Search for fmkit beacon.

FPVandotherprojects,

A good good advice, is to record ALL flights so that you can find the plane by the video!
If you have a OSD, you can use the GPS coordinates, also obtained from the video.

Best Regards, Gerardo.

FPVandotherprojects,

Yeah. It's hard to go wrong for $30 with the key ringer. That said, the fmkit beacon that Jaguar_5 mentioned looks really cool. There is an older thread here about it:
http://fpv-community.com/forum/showthrea...=81&page=1
Here's the order site:
http://fmtv.us/rf_beacon.html
It's out of stock. I emailed fmkit to ask about availability. I'll let you know when I hear anything.

It couldn't hurt to have redundant systems - audio and radio ways to locate a plane. And having redundant systems have been a standard idea for aviation since the beginning.

Then use the radio signal to get within a few hundred feet and then zero in the rest of the way via hearing. The frequency of the fmkit beacon is very easy to make a small directional yagi for. Easy stuff, perfect frequency for that.

Here is my youtube channel, click on the roche a cri video link and you will see the mound that ate my plane!

http://www.youtube.com/FPVandotherprojects

You could get a "Loc8tor Plus", it's kinda expensive but should work up to 180 meters.
http://www.loc8tor.com/Store/