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The Last Flight of the Phoenix!

It's been a bad few days what with the Sandpiper folding its wings and then the Phoenix flying away.

On the day it flew away, Sunday 25th August, one of the hottest of the year,  I had wandered the fields towards the north looking for the Phoenix and listening for its 'lost signal' alarm. My thanks to Brian who joined me in the fruitless search. We were both near exhaustion when we gave up!

The Phoenix was equipped with a GPS system and my Taranis transmitter logged all GPS data by default so logic suggested that all I had to do was interrogate the data and I would quickly see where the Phoenix had landed, or more likely - crashed!

Back in the command and control centre I downloaded the data, fed it in to Google Earth and came up with a map showing the route of the last Flight of the Phoenix.

The end point appeared to be a field close to Mows Hill Farm. The map showed the take off point with remarkable accuracy, so the landing (crash) point must be just as accurate - right! All I needed to do was go to the point shown on the map and that's where the Phoenix would be!

Wrong!

The day after the fly-away, which turned out to be Bank Holiday Monday - another very hot day - I  asked permission from a nice lady in the Mows Hill farmhouse and went to the field shown on the map. There wasn't a sign of the Phoenix! I walked right around the perimeter of the field but couldn't see any sign of the lost plane. I had told my wife who was sitting in the car that I would be about ten minutes. It was about an hour later that I went back.

The next day I went back again. This time with the actual GPS coordinates of the landing point and used my phone to go to that precise location. It was exactly where the map indicated it would be, but there was no sign of the Phoenix. No sign of any bits of plane! More wandering was done, but still no sign of the Phoenix.

I looked again at the GPS data. The Taranis logs all data from the Phoenix, including stuff from the Frsky Variometer which was also installed in the plane. This showed that at the time of the last GPS data the Phoenix was still flying at about 40m! It was then that I realised that the last logged GPS position wasn't where it landed (crashed) but where the telemetry stopped being received by the Taranis! The Phoenix had still been flying at the time!

That explained why I couldn't find it in the field, but it opened up the search to a much wider area. How far could a Phoenix fly from 40m altitude with no input from the pilot?

The following Wednesday we had a fairly short flying session so I decided to make one last patrol of the area to north of Mows Hill Farm. This was definitely going to be my last attempt. In my mind I had already written off the Rx, Motor, LiPo, GPS, battery monitor, variometer, and ,of course, the Phoenix itself!

I parked at a place about as far north of Mows Hill Farm as our flying field was south, so almost double the distance away from take off as I originally thought. The wind had been blowing from the south when it flew away so it was likely to have crashed north of the last GPS location. I walked towards the south until I found a gate in to a field. I went through this gate and started walking south. I walked the perimeter of three large fields during the next hour and a half, but there was no sign of the Phoenix.

T he last remaining hope had gone! I headed back to the gate I had used to get in to the first field with my head down. In fact my head was so far down that I nearly missed the pile of white plastic just inside the gate! It took a double take before I realised that it was the remains of a radio controlled glider! It was my Phoenix! How had it got there? It definitely wasn't there when I went through the gate initially. Someone had just dumped it there!

A quick look suggested that it had not only crash landed , but something else had happened to it. There were breaks in the wings and fuselage that definitely weren't made in any sort of crash landing!

However, although the Lipo had gone, all the other electrical bits were still there.

I gathered it all up and took it back to my car. I put the bits in the back and got in to the car before I noticed a note under the wiper. Basically it said 'if you are the person who is searching for a glider, my stockman found it and I've just left it in the entrance to the next field down the road!'

The note was written on a sheet of paper which had a company name and telephone number on it, so I phoned the number to offer thanks. The company had nothing to do with the glider but they suggested who it might have been and gave me their number. I phoned the new number and spoke to the man who had left the note and the glider! I offered my thanks and he apologised for the state of the Phoenix.  It looks to me as though his stockman had found the Phoenix with a tractor!

However, after removing all the electrical bits and testing them thoroughly, I can now report that all the electronics have survived, even down to the servos!

Everything is ready to be installed in to the next Phoenix!

Good hunting Colin.

No clues about what happened though ? Wonder what happened to the lipo. Flung out ?

Colin I am happy to give you the airframe of my Phoenix its all in good condition just painted a bit different. Let me know and I will remove the electrical bits.

Thanks for your very kind offer, Mel, but I've already ordered another Phoenix - a V2 with a wheel! This hobby is costing me a fortune!

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