Today I lost my Eachine Trashcan by flying stupid high and trying an inverted yaw spin. A bit of wind blew the kwad off direction and into the trees where it spun out of control. I could not find it in the bushes after searching for two hours, so it most likely ended up in the pond behind the field

So kids... don't fly anywhere near water, avoid trees and wilderness, and get a good beeper with a battery.

Anyone else here have some horror stories, or more dos and don'ts to avoid losing a kwad?



The final resting place:

Best way to not loose a quad is to not fly it. As thats not going to happen you are going to loose them

My worst was when I got my first brushless quad. On it maiden flight the wind took hold of it. It went far enough away so I couldn't see what direction it was facing. Tried to figure it out but it got further and further away until it failsafed over houses.

I did get it back months later and it still worked. Then I got it stuck in a tree so now lost forever

I'm a bit extra scared now to lose my beloved GepRC Phantom so I thought I'd add a label to it with my telephone number. If I fail to find it or it crashes into someone's yard then at least there's a chance for it to be returned to me.

I made the label with the awesome Dymo XTL 300 printer we have at work, it has a cartridge for cable wrap labels which have a transparent part to wrap on top of the print, to keep the text from fading away.

Does anyone else label their kwads with bring-me-home information?

did not look like the quad went in the water from the footage. i see grass.

(18-Mar-2020, 05:31 PM)voodoo614 Wrote: did not look like the quad went in the water from the footage. i see grass.

I tend to agree. As it seemed to fall out of a taller tree which from the pics doesn’t look to be straight over the pond.

If you do believe it’s in the water here is how I had to recover a 3” build of mine skip to about 6:30 for the “fail”

Thanks for the positivity voodoo614  

On the day of the crash I actually analyzed and re-analyzed the final images, slowing the video footage down and even splitting it up into individual images:


  TrashCrash1.zip (Size: 1.7 MB / Downloads: 68)
  TrashCrash2.zip (Size: 1.81 MB / Downloads: 83)

I tried to find recognizable places;

image-24644: tree with a scar
image-24707: tree with yellowish moss
image-24749: fairly horizontal tree, houses with white features in the background
image-24760: specific branch shape, I assume in water

But I couldn't really find any of it. Maybe I was really looking in the wrong places.

The thing that still gives me some hope was the very short revival in image-24806, I wonder if it's possible to receive any video signal when the quad is in water? If that's impossible, there's still a possibility it's not in water but crashed in bushes with a disconnected battery.

The weather here got a lot better now so the water and mud has disappeared a bit. Tomorrow I'll go look around again...

Great video, Drone0fPrey! I'm taking some garbage bags and a rake with me tomorrow

(18-Mar-2020, 09:48 PM)L0stB1t Wrote: Great video, Drone0fPrey! I'm taking some garbage bags and a rake with me tomorrow

good luck, hope you find it.

I checked all pictures again and I found a recognizable tree branch. Sadly my only conclusion is that the quad is definitely in the water. I went through the water with the rake while wearing the trash bags around my legs but could not find it. The pond is actually pretty deep and full of little twigs and leaves so it's impossible to comb a larger area...


Oh well, at least I learned some things the hard way

(19-Mar-2020, 10:52 PM)L0stB1t Wrote: I checked all pictures again and I found a recognizable tree branch. Sadly my only conclusion is that the quad is definitely in the water. I went through the water with the rake while wearing the trash bags around my legs but could not find it. The pond is actually pretty deep and full of little twigs and leaves so it's impossible to comb a larger area...


Oh well, at least I learned some things the hard way

Oh man, yeah she in the pond
Probably right near that bush too

Good eyes. At least you know where it is. Does the pond drain at any point in the season?

The pond is a bit overflown right now and it'll surely drain a bit in the coming weeks or months. But I doubt there will be much to recover after so much time, so I won't put too much time into finding it anymore