night flying

[Ken Fidler]

The reason I am posting this thread is because I saw someone mention starting to night fly-if you need any ideas I would be glad to help. Back in Orlando, night flying was a norm. During December and June, my club would hold an annual nighttime competition that was fun to participate in. Besides competing Don Miller, some friends, and myself would go to the field and just fly. Don and I have even combated at night.

Some ideas
I have used lights (Christmas and halogen) as well as the glow sticks kids use during Halloween. I have seen some great ideas from fellow flyers like using clear tubing to outline the plane and inject the liquid from the glow sticks. With two of my planes, I built them with lights inside the wing-the wing was covered clear on top and for the bottom red for the left and green for the right. I also added a clear light to the vertical fin. On one of my planes, I had a switch to turn on and off the lights; great advantage during combat. If you go the light route, I converted a plane one time by running the wires for the light on the leading edge of the wing; there were no hunting tendencies during flight. With the slowsticks, Don has a source for some small lights that should work great. I also remember Rick having a light kit at the hobby shop.

With any setup you try, it is best to have at least three points for reference with each reference point a different color (i.e.-red on left wing tip, green on the right wing tip, and clear for the tail.

Hope this helps, Ken

[Jim_Marconnet]

Ken, thanks for starting this and for sharing your experience.

One thing I've read but I do not have first-hand experience in is how difficult night-time flying is. Can you "illuminate" us on that!?

[Ken Fidler]

Jim,

If you feel real comfortable flying during the day it is not that hard to fly at night. The first time I tried to night fly I did everything with the plane I could do during the day; rolling circles, rolling loops, hover, point rolls, and so on. The only difference was that I had to concentrate more and felt fatigued after about 10 minutes. After the second or third flight, I really could not tell the difference between day and night. I have seen others with good flight experience manage to fly with some help from a spotter that had nighttime experience.

My best advise is to use a plane that you feel real comfortable with and keep the flight to just straight and level flight-no aerobatics. Shoot some touch and goes and keep the flight short. Also a good light system helps a lot, one that really shows the plane at night.

Some other advice, with the plane on the ground, turn the lights on. Then stand about 100 feet away and look at the plane. Walk around the plane from 100 feet. This will help you to find the dark spots on your plane. If you have dark spots you may need to move the lights a little for better illumination.

Hope this helps, Ken

[Jim_Marconnet]

If you feel real comfortable flying during the day it is not that hard to fly at night......

Thanks so much. That's really encouraging given the wind forecasts I've seen. Seems like night-time may be the only time for flying many days this winter. Not to mention how it gets dark so early!

No, I'm not completely comfortable flying my new SS yet. But I've come a long ways in a few flights. And now that I know what props to use, which of my batteries work for me, and to keep them hot before the flight, I'll have many fewer flight variables do deal with.

[GLIDERGIDER]

With the slowsticks, Don has a source for some small lights that should work great. I also remember Rick having a light kit at the hobby shop. Ken
Ken,
It sounds like fun. Can you post a link to some commercial night lights? Also, where is Don Miller anyway. Did you send him back to California?
Dave

[Ken Fidler]

Ken,
It sounds like fun. Can you post a link to some commercial night lights? Also, where is Don Miller anyway. Did you send him back to California?
Dave

Dave,
All my nights were custom-made, except for the electronic switch. I will look around. For the little lights that Don told me about go to
http://www.shulmanaviation.com/Micro-litez.html . Don might be able to get a good deal for a bulk order since he knows Don Shulman pretty well. Is anyone interested in buying bulk?

Don is on vacation in Ohio. Not to sure when he will be back; may be this week?

Ken

[Quacker]

OK. It's time for a real puzzler. Can anyone tell me how this IFO is light up? Hint-taken with a digital comera that has its limitations. It's much darker out then it appears, the IFO is much brighter then it appears.

[GLIDERGIDER]

OK. It's time for a real puzzler. Can anyone tell me how this IFO is light up?
My guess is that there is a light on its vertical tail shining down on the fabric. The fabric has a semi-transparent thickness and the light shines through.

[Quacker]

Close-but there's more to it than meets the eye ;)

[ghee-grose]

Check this one out! Talk about being really lit up!!!

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=439334

[Mars Flyer]

OK. It's time for a real puzzler. Can anyone tell me how this IFO is light up? Hint-taken with a digital comera that has its limitations. It's much darker out then it appears, the IFO is much brighter then it appears.

Quacker,

It looks to me like that IFO is flying inverted with lights on the "landing gear" - the single wheel and the 2 CF rod tail dragging things. I think you can see the electronics because they are casting a shadow on the fabric which is transmitting some of the light.

I have a mini-IFO and I have a hard time discerning attitude in the daylight. It would be really tough for me at night.

EDIT - the above is all wrong. I see now that it is not inverted but the tail struts are on the top rather than on the bottom and the lights are on those and on the top part of the landing gear stick illuminating the bird from the top side and we are looking at the bottom.

How's that for covering all the bases?

Rob

[Quacker]

Ok- you are really going to like this one. The lights are up on short stalks so that they can shine down on the top. There are three stalks, one at the front and two at the tips. Now comes the interesting part: THE ENTIRE IFO IS FLUORESCING! IT LOOKS EVEN BRIGHTER THAN THIS IN TOTAL DARKNESS BECAUSE IT IS COVERED IN DAY-GLO FABRIC AND ILLUMINATED WITH ULTRAVIOLET LEDS! It appears brilliant in the night sky like a black light poster. A digital camera simply can’t do it justice. It is so bright and defined that I frequently spec it out at night! Passersby always form a crowd to watch!

The high powered UV LED’s do have some visible light and appear a dull pink-purple. I ground down and re-polished the round lens front in the LED’s to get a broad illumination field. Then I painted the LED sides and back with Day-Glo paint. The LED’s scatter some light internally and light themselves up like heck. The front LED appears orange, the tips-yellow. The result is that each Led glows brilliantly from any viewpoint and can be seen at enormous distances. The colors tell the IFO orientation with ease. The fabric is thin enough to fluoresce right through the bottom.

[Quacker]

Blurry but...

[Mars Flyer]

Quacker,

Very cool. Cameras can't show the narrow band emission from a flourescent source so I'll bet it is beautiful. I didn't know there were UV LEDs. Very high tech!

Rob

[Quacker]

Thanks! UV LED's are pretty new. I got mine from an eBay supplier in Hong Kong. The further UV the better up to a point. Each is run at only about 30ma so you can imagine how effective this is. Only 3 are used to light the whole thing.

[Miderror]

We just stick lights to whatever we where flying.
Tape is best for onsight riging.

Typ types of lights we use.

Look at the blinking buttons at the bottem.
http://www.fireflashers.com/?wcw=yahoo&OVRAW=blinking%20lights&OVKEY=blinking%20light&OVMTC=standard

Little more light and fun to outline what your flying.
http://www.glowire.com/rc_kits.htm

Night combat is fun as it gets boring just flying light dots around.

Dave, I've night sloped couple times and it was fun.

Bring on the hot summer nights.

Don