Fisherman Snags My Plane??

[prelator]

Today I was doing an awesome FPV flight with my Hawk Sky over a large inlet and tidal marshes in Virginia beach, and was having some fun flying low over the water and buzzing a few boats. At one point I buzzed a fishing boat, and looking at the video footage afterward, it looks like one of the guys on the boat chucked his fishing lure at me!

I kept flying along like normal not realizing anything had happened, but after I flew about 1,000 feet further up the channel, all of a sudden my plane jerked and started bucking like crazy. I had no clue what was causing it, but I immediately turned around, came back, and landed. On the ground I discovered that the 1/2 wave extension I had soldered onto the antenna of my Corona RP6D1 72mhz receiver had been ripped off, cleanly severed at the solder joint. The missing piece of wire was nowhere to be found.

Check out the video below, and tell me if you think what I think happened--that the fishing lure tangled in my antenna wire trailing behind the plane, and eventually snagged when I hit the end of the fishing line, breaking the antenna when it tore free. Is that crazy or what? If that guy had caused my plane to crash in the ocean, I would have been so mad....


View this video on YouTube

[SENTRY]

LOL. Plane fishing FTW

LADY: Catch anything honey?
MAN: Easy Star - but it got away

[Windbreaker]

The guy probably didn't like being buzzed.

[Danub]

OK here is my take. . . My roomate is a crackhead fisherman (self described) 2-3 times a week. If he snagged your plane within 50yards he would of closed the bail to "set the hook" and before you made it to the next boat you would of gone down. . . Even if it was the lightest saltwater gear it would pull my zeph out the air like nothin!!
If he only caught your antenna the jerk would of been earlier. Is it possible that wind got the antenna caught in the prop?

Love that area. . . My uncle lives in Chesapeke, Va.

[prelator]

Hmm so you don't think it would have taken that long to reach the end of the line? Don't think the antenna could have gotten caught in the prop, as I've been flying with the antenna this way ever since I started FPV about a month ago and that's never happened before. The antenna is tapped pretty well to the underside of the tail of my Hawk Sky running out the tip under the horizontal stabilizer. I suppose maybe it could have flipped over the top of the stab, but it seems unlikely since I was just flying along straight and level and there was barely any wind.

I suppose the antenna could have been ripped off on landing (that has happened once before), but I couldn't find the wire where the plane landed, and it wouldn't explain the jerk and crazy behavior in flight.

[SENTRY]

The jerk in flight? The jerk was the guy who was buzzing strangers. LOL. (j/k) Ignore me - I'm not as think as you drunk I am.

[Danub]

Hmm so you don't think it would have taken that long to reach the end of the line? Don't think the antenna could have gotten caught in the prop, as I've been flying with the antenna this way ever since I started FPV about a month ago and that's never happened before. The antenna is tapped pretty well to the underside of the tail of my Hawk Sky running out the tip under the horizontal stabilizer. I suppose maybe it could have flipped over the top of the stab, but it seems unlikely since I was just flying along straight and level and there was barely any wind.

I suppose the antenna could have been ripped off on landing (that has happened once before), but I couldn't find the wire where the plane landed, and it wouldn't explain the jerk and crazy behavior in flight.

Yes it could of taken that long to get to the end of the line but a fishermen would not let his line go like that. he would "catch" the plane within a few yards.
I am twice as drunk as Sentry but if you can think of how it "possibly" could of happened then that is probably what happened.

Unless the fisherman was as drunk as me in which case he could not believe that he caught you!!

[Danub]

The guy probably didn't like being buzzed.

MAn, everyone likes being "buzzed". LOL
Sorry I had to.

[Glenstr]

if it had happened sooner than that maybe, or right away, but I think 1000' is quite awhile later and well beyond the line capacity of most reels (but I could be mistaken), and had the lure got tangled in your antenna and his line tightened I think you would have felt it right away, and to cast a lure like he did it had to have some weight to it, and I thought you would have felt (seen) that right away too.

I watched it again, and you were waay past the boat that casted at you (which he definitely did) - the only thing I can think of is the lure was caught in your antenna alright, but somehow his line was cut shortly after and it got caught on something else after, I'm thinking maybe it was dragging over the 2nd boat you buzzed and one of them managed to grab on to it but not hang on, or hung on and it jerked the antenna extension off.

Even that's a stretch though, but I can't think of anything else it could have been..

[Windbreaker]

Spinners usually hold about 200 to 300 yards of line. Some less. Depends on the tackle being used. So the plane wouldn't have gone all that far before it got to the end of the spool.

Then there's the reels I use for trolling: 950 yards of 130-pound hollow-braid plus another 300 yards of 100-pound monofilament. Would need binoculars to see the fish by that time! :-)

Maybe the guy was fly fishing... and got something flying.