First Night Fly!!!

[sprzout]

Did my first night fly at the field last night, and it was a blast. 😁

I built a Versa Wing up (relatively easy, fast construction, and I had two spare sheets left until the Dollar Tree restocks), and adorned it with a set of multi color LED strips from HobbyKing that I’d bought 2 years ago. It looked great!

I DID learn a few things, though:

1) Make sure you pattern the lights to tell which way is up or down - or use different colors for the top and bottom.

2) I tend to land, when flying line of sight, by sighting along The leading edge of the wing as I make my approach. If the LED light strips are on top of the wing, it’s pretty stinkin’ hard to see that leading edge and know how close to the ground you are for landing!!!

All in all, it was a blast, and left me to wonder if some drunk guy outnear our field looked up and said, “Whoa! A UFO!!!”

 

[Wildthing]

Did my first night fly at the field last night, and it was a blast. 😁

I built a Versa Wing up (relatively easy, fast construction, and I had two spare sheets left until the Dollar Tree restocks), and adorned it with a set of multi color LED strips from HobbyKing that I’d bought 2 years ago. It looked great!

I DID learn a few things, though:

1) Make sure you pattern the lights to tell which way is up or down - or use different colors for the top and bottom.

2) I tend to land, when flying line of sight, by sighting along The leading edge of the wing as I make my approach. If the LED light strips are on top of the wing, it’s pretty stinkin’ hard to see that leading edge and know how close to the ground you are for landing!!!

All in all, it was a blast, and left me to wonder if some drunk guy outnear our field looked up and said, “Whoa! A UFO!!!”

Also if it is really black out take a flashlight with you incase you crash and knock the battery loose so you can find the plane

 

[sprzout]

Also if it is really black out take a flashlight with you incase you crash and knock the battery loose so you can find the plane

I've actually got a head lamp - one of those strap things that Harbor Freight sells - and I use that! It works great at the prep table to see so I can put things away. Only issue I had was really being able to see how close to the runway I was - when everything's black and the LEDs don't reflect off of the runway to judge distance, it's tough. But I would do it again!!!

 

[Wildthing]

I've actually got a head lamp - one of those strap things that Harbor Freight sells - and I use that! It works great at the prep table to see so I can put things away. Only issue I had was really being able to see how close to the runway I was - when everything's black and the LEDs don't reflect off of the runway to judge distance, it's tough. But I would do it again!!!

The ground is always hard to see. Set up some battery powered led strips you can lay on the ground just to help with perception.

 

[sprzout]

The ground is always hard to see. Set up some battery powered led strips you can lay on the ground just to help with perception.

Next time. I've got a bunch of battery powered "fairy lights" that I bought to light up some quadcopter gates (and in retrospect, I should've taken some with me to buzz through that night, but wasn't thinking about it until now), and those probably would have worked great...