Night Flying

[jsknockoff]

I’d really like to put a plane together to do some night flying this coming year, and I have absolutely zero experience with LED lighting. I picked up a Kadet Seniorita to use as a platform because I wanted something slow and easy to maneuver. Also I kinda figured with the mostly stick frame it would allow the most internal light to shine through. Here are my questions so far:

1. What covering material works best for lighting transparent or opaque?
2. What components do I need for a basic lighting system? I’m assuming LED strips would work the best? Do they just get wired up together and run off of a separate switch and battery?
3. If I need an additional battery what size is necessary to run several 4-6 strips of lights?

 

[Craftydan]

If your battery is running 3S (not sure if you're building her gas or adding an electric motor), it's easy-peasy. It's already 12v, so you can get 12v LED strips and wire those to plug into the balance connector. wanna fly with lights, plug it in. flying in the day leave them unplugged. Beauty of wiring it up, if you plug them in backwards, nothing break. They just don't work until you flip the plug over.

Go non-waterproof. you won't be flying the lights on in the rain, and the silicone layer is extra weight.

For a typical stick and monocote build, I'd recommend a mix. Most "opaque" covering is really translucent and will glow under LED light. the transparents look cool letting both daylight and your LEDs shine directly through, tinted by the covering. On a ribbed wing I typically have one or two bays along the length striped opaque with the rest a nice matching colored transparent. Naturally, this is up to the artist, so go crazy, but have at least one bay opaque, or you might find an orientation where the LEDs are facing away from you and you get nearly no light off the wing.

Light more than just the wing. Light more than just the fuselage. with only the wing lit, you're begging for trouble with orientation. while you can clearly see the direction you're going, and probably have a good handle on the roll, you have weak pitch indication and that is BAD for staying off the ground. Lighting the wing and the fuse is a bit better, but then you have a flying "T" . . . which is still cool to fly, but looks weird. better than nothing,but a little bit of effort either running a strip down the H-stabs, or putting the LED bulb for a car dome light on the H-stab tips shining back on the V-stab makes a huge difference on how she looks in the air.

When it comes to the first night, NEVER fly somewhere you haven't flown in the day before, and always be familiar with the local hazards (big tree off to the left, fence along the south end, etc.). You probably won't see them when it's dark to avoid them. It's a good idea to fly at dusk the first time (starting at the golden hour and flying a few packs into twilight is magical), just to ease into the feel of it. As the sky darkens if you have trouble seeing the lights from some angles or telling the orientation from what you see, might be a good time to land, and see if the lights can be adjusted to improve that (even if it means ending for the night). I've had a few nice night flyers that looked amazing from the side and became a black spot in the dark sky from head-on (makes the landing approach fun ). That is usually more stress than it's worth, so fix, then fly when it's right

 

[bazsound]

my local club had a recent night flying session. 1 very experienced flyer brought out this plane which im guessing is an acrobatic glideer, it was build very light with a folding prop and had LED strip lights inside the frame and the covering was opauque.

The strips were hooked up to a brushed speed control, for ...... dimable lights. This plane would fly forever under no power doing loops and rolls. Every so often he would turn the lights out, you would loose track of it then it would reapear in the sky elswhere.

Incredible.

anyway, for a beginner, clear orinatation indication is your friend its so easy to loose orientation even in th day

 

[jsknockoff]

Good info guys, thanks. So for a basic setup I’ll get a strip for each wing panel, one for down the fuse, and one for in the horizontal stab. Then run them off the balance lead with a 4 strip pigtail? Any other parts I’m not thinking of here?

 

[Joker 53150]

I like the lights that people install at the wingtips, aiming back towards the plane to light up the entire exterior of the plane.

Regarding a battery to power the lights, I like the idea of a separate battery pack just to separate it from the receiver or flight pack.

 

[bazsound]

on flying wings. a strip on the top near the leading edge and bottom, 2 different colours looks amazing at night. and very easy to see

 

[TazRC]

On one of my wings I put white LEDs facing the prop to light it up while spinning.

 

[jsknockoff]

Did you just tape them to the wing?

 

[TazRC]

Those LEDs are adhesive-backed, just peel and stick. Came from HobbyKing in different colors.

 

[quimney]

Here's one of my night-flyers. It's made from DTFB and the led strips are inside, In the wing they are stuck to the spar. in the fuselage they are stuck to each side pointing at the other. In the wing I have white LEDs pointing forward and red ones pointing back. Because it can be hard to tell how high you are in the dark I have a couple LEDs pointing down so the ground lights up when I get close to the deck. Like CraftyDan suggests I just plug them into the balance connector. They really don't have much effect of battery life at all.



I also suggest that you fly in a familiar area the first time and preferably on a cloudy or moonless night. If you happen to fly across the sun in the daytime your eyes burn a little but recovery is quick. When I fly across a full moon I can't see anything for a long time... maybe it's my old eyes but it was a huge mistake for me. I've had the most fun in twilight when it's too dark to fly but the area is still dimly lit.

I would also recommend avoiding blue LEDs. I built a blue one once and it was very hard to see. Blue light can be hard to focus on and the plane just looked blurry making it hard to tell what it's doing.

 

[ViperTech]

A couple of my night fliers. They all are using adhesive strip leds. but the one on the table I used just white and mounted the strips on carbon fibre strips vertically to light the body of the plane. where the others are surface mounted and all you see in the air is the led strips. I use 3s batteries and just plug into the flight pack balance plug.


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