9053 helicopter eaten by a tree

A few days ago I was flying the ol' faithful 9053 helicopter in the backyard when suddenly a tree jumped out, grabbed it and ate it, straight out of the air. Unfortunately this all happened about 10 metres up where I couldn't reach it and the tree was much too thin to climb. After a few unsuccessful attemps with a rope & hook, I basically gave it up as a lost cause. I tried the next evening (more than 24 hours later) after I saw the blue light from the tail shining through the leaves. You could tell that the chopper was trying to catch my attention. "Help me. Help me." Anyway, THAT attempt was a failure too. 'Twas much sadness and gnashing of teeth that night.
Today we had strong winds and very heavy rains - I was picturing the poor thing up there getting soaked, with a flat battery, unloved, unwanted. After I got home I had a look and BMD, it had dropped into some lower branches, nearly within reach of a couple of 3mtr poles tied together with my grapple on the end. SUCCESS!! With a bit of persuasion it fell out of the tree a-over-t and landed with a heavy thud at my feet. Wet and bedraggled, a lone cockroach crawled out of the wreckage and looked at me in disgust.
Damage to the chopper? NOTHING! Not a scratch. Not even the flybar was bent. I removed the video camera which was attached to the chopper and despite the corrupted file, managed to extract the attached movie, which covers from initial takeoff to backing into the tree. Backing? Well yes, I was trying to fly away from the tree when a gust of wind caught me and that was that. These 3 channel choppers are known for their poor against--the-wind performance. Once the battery is charged and the chopper is dry, with luck up she goes again. This is one tough little bird. The saga continues...

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• eaten
• by
• a
• tree

[olsmokey]

While the chopper still flies I'll have to strip it down and give it a good clean & lube. It's lost a lot of power after 2 days in the elements. Possibly the motor bearings are seizing. I wouldn't be surprised.

The camera is mounted directly below the main shafts on a quick release salvaged from a plastic 'gorilla' tripod. One part glued to the chopper at a slight down angle, and the other glued to the top of the camera. Takes barely a couple of seconds to fit or remove the camera.

[cheddar1100]

OMG!!!SANTA I KNOW WERE U LIVE!!!!

[MrBhargab123]

i liked the story. Very interesting . What happened to the cockroach ?

[Godlovesslimjim]

Cool

[ckhatzi]

Camera looks steady now on this video nice work but it the chopper broken now?

Where did you mount that camera still under canopy with some tape?