RC Plane Crash in Saltwater During the Wintertime! Cold water rescue of the DHC Turbo Beaver!

During testing of a new GoPro Hero 8 black I accidentally crashed an RC plane into the fjord outside my house. Being wintertime it's extremely cold, and being a fjord, which attaches to the Atlantic ocean, it is saltwater... This made rescue efforts both difficult and very important. In addition to this the plane was drifting and the sun was setting. Time for action!

This is really just a fun video to share the mini adventure and the test footage from the camera. However a few important lessons: Wings, body, and control surfaces can get covered in ice when flying on the water during winter. This can add significant weight, especially to the tail due to splashing water, which can cause both a heavy plane and a shift in center of gravity, COG, generally resulting in a tail heavy plane which is very bad... and swimming to rescue your plane in the winter should not be attempted!

The day before after a few test flights I noticed the plane felt heavy, I went home, weighed the plane and found about 300g of additional weight due to water in the floats and ice on the surfaces! This is about 25% of the plane's total weight and explains why I was have issues taking off at the end of the test flights...

Anyway, I'm impressed with the limited amount of damage the plane sustained. The battery, received, motor, esc and many servos all survived the saltwater crash. The aileron servos however are acting a bit strange and will be replaced. Beyond that I'll need to glue a few spots as noted in the video, but should be back in the air shortly.

Hope you enjoyed the video, if you did, please like, comment, subscribe and stay tuned for more episodes!

Model Information:
This brushless RC airplane was sold by STM (ST Model) but the same model appears to have been branded by Dynam, Flyzone, Horizon Hobby and maybe others. It came with a Microzone transmitter and receiver which are pretty nice actually. (Though I did have a circuit board malfunction which resulted in a crash, I'll post a video about this soon.)

The plane is 1500mm (60in) and almost 1500grams (3.3lbs) which is a nice size, and with the bush wheel and scale flaps the plane flies great, and handles my difficult runaway pretty well.

Camera Gear: iPhone with Moment Lenses and Insta360 OneCamera
Edited using Final Cut Pro X
Music from Epidemic Sounds
Shot in Norway

Note: This is on private property with permissions from land owners to perform these flights. They enjoy the show! Thanks to all who support me!

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Key Words: ST Model, Elefun, HobbyKing, RC, groups, Radio, Controlled, Flite, Test, Beginner, Transmitter, Receiver, Flaps, Ailerons, Elevator, Wings, Propeller, Foam, Aircraft, Scale Model, Hobby, Bush plane, 2020, 2021, 2022, Norway, Norge, Fjord, Salt water, electronics, fried, Forums, RCuniverse, RCgroups, Modellfly, Modelflying, Moment Lenses, Insta360, Microzone, Spektrum, Hobbysquawk, RCIndia, RCbazaar, Look for my user name in any of these forums, look forward to see you all around!