Wicked Witch Found!

On May 22, 2008 I lost a Wicked Witch RC Video Plane into the large cone tornado south of Collyer, KS. This plane has been found!

I had been having trouble locking in the wireless video signal so with the tornado approaching from the west I quickly mounted an ActionCam flash memory camera on the plane and flew it out towards the tornado. The plane got into the inflow and I lost sight of it under the dark rainfree base. I called to the group to help me spot it in the air. We saw it a couple of times but then it dissapeared under the RFB in front of the tornado. Whether it actually went into the tornado - only the video onboard will tell.

Well this morning on my voicemail was a message from a Steve Ziegler in Kansas. My plane had been found! It was lying in a field 6 miles south of Collyer, KS - roughly where I lost it. It had been sitting there for three weeks and they found it while planting corn.

I quickly called him back and asked him to describe how it looked and was there a large black cigar shaped camera on the bottom?? NO CAMERA... the nose had been broken off but no camera.

Today they are going to go back out to the area to look for the camera now that they know what it looks like. If the camera can be found it should have the video still preserved on the memory card inside. I anxiously await thier call!

Update: I have since talked to Steve's mom Angie and they are doing a story on finding the plane for their local paper. They will be sending the plane back to me and the location of the camera still is unknown. It was likely separated from the plane when it first went down or in the three weeks of blowing around in the field.