My interesting use for a drone

[Stormchaser7]

I belong to an R/C club in the Seattle area and use my drone to find lost airplanes. Flying to the exact location is of the airplane can be challenging, especially with the tall grass and a search area of 120 acres. I use Drone Deploy with a Mavic 2 Pro to create a large stitched photo that I can view on a large monitor to locate the plane. Once I locate the plane, it is easy to see the GPS coordinates on the image file GeoTag. I would love to be able to figure out how to fly back to that exact GPS location to guide someone right to the airplane. Any suggestions on how to program a flight to a specific GPS coordinate?

 

[Torque]

I belong to an R/C club in the Seattle area and use my drone to find lost airplanes. Flying to the exact location is of the airplane can be challenging, especially with the tall grass and a search area of 120 acres. I use Drone Deploy with a Mavic 2 Pro to create a large stitched photo that I can view on a large monitor to locate the plane. Once I locate the plane, it is easy to see the GPS coordinates on the image file GeoTag. I would love to be able to figure out how to fly back to that exact GPS location to guide someone right to the airplane. Any suggestions on how to program a flight to a specific GPS coordinate?

Sure beats walking a grid through that tall obnoxious grass at Marymoor! I've had to do that a few times to find my planes.

 

[PINEBARON]

Back in the day before drones and fpv cameras, I flew at the Pinebarrens RC club in south NJ, then across a regional airport. One of our members was a helicopter pilot. When an expensive plane could not be located in the tall grass, we paid the heli-pilot to rent a heli (with him flying) for $50/15 minutes and that was usally enough to help locate the plane in about a 3/4 sq mile area.

Using drones now is so much simpler.

On your question I think you can use a third-party application like WaypointMap.com to create a waypoint mission on your computer then import it; you can then fly using the new set of waypoints and get it to hover at the one you know.

 

[Cafguy]

Very cool Idea!! At our field we generally just follow the trail of balsa and covering.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

I belong to an R/C club in the Seattle area and use my drone to find lost airplanes. Flying to the exact location is of the airplane can be challenging, especially with the tall grass and a search area of 120 acres. I use Drone Deploy with a Mavic 2 Pro to create a large stitched photo that I can view on a large monitor to locate the plane. Once I locate the plane, it is easy to see the GPS coordinates on the image file GeoTag. I would love to be able to figure out how to fly back to that exact GPS location to guide someone right to the airplane. Any suggestions on how to program a flight to a specific GPS coordinate?

Create a Litchi mission to fly to a specific GPS location. The point parameters include Lat/Long. Easy peasy…

 

[PINEBARON]

Very cool Idea!! At our field we generally just follow the trail of balsa and covering.

The last plane I crashed was more than twenty years ago, in fact I did not crash but its wing disintegrated in the air when I was doing extreme maneuvers with a Calypso gas plane, ws 60" or more and that was a sight.

My favourite 2m pattern plane

 

[Rchawks]

About 18 years ago for me. Radio failure over one of my nephews cornfields. I watched in horror as it plowed straight down into the ground like a Lawn Dart destroying everything from the leading edge of the wing forward. It would have saved me a lot of time to have a drone looking for it from the air for sure!

 

[Capt KO]

Agree that Litchi is the answer, it displays lat/longs in real time while in flight. Sounds like what you need

 

[IronSky1]

Why don't you put a GPS tracker on the RC Aircraft. I have been using Trakimo for years on my drones which has saved my drone several times. Just follow the app to tracker.. The new 4G version is super accurate.

 

[Capt KO]

Why don't you put a GPS tracker on the RC Aircraft. I have been using Trakimo for years on my drones which has saved my drone several times. Just follow the app to tracker.. The new 4G version is super accurate.

Same with Marco Polo trackers, good for 2mi and they really do work. Fairly cheap used but each craft would need one. Seems OP has a fun hobby looking for those lost RCs, just needs the lat/longs (like Litchi).

 

[GadgetGuy]

Why don't you put a GPS tracker on the RC Aircraft. I have been using Trakimo for years on my drones which has saved my drone several times. Just follow the app to tracker.. The new 4G version is super accurate.

The OP is helping the owners who failed to have that logical foresight. Too late for them, and there will always be those who fail to plan for the inevitable.