Gary Morris
Dec 20, 2007, 05:17 PM
OK, I read all the posts and could tell everyone was having way too much fun flying at night so I had to jump on the band wagon. I have and old, 4 years old, Slow Stick that I used for aerial photography that I don't fly as much as I did so I've converted it to a flying light house! I opted for the cheapo lights sold by Walmart, they come 10 to a string and are super bright, power is 4.5 Volts! I took three strings and put two on the wings, 10 each side, and 10 on the horizontal tail. The lights come in red, green and red & green. I replaced my stock tail with a coroplast tail and I embedded the lights inside the cells in the corrugation. The entire cell lights up now and gives off and eerie glow! I am powering the lights using and old speed controller which puts out 5 volts. The resistor is already in the string on the end so no need for a resistor at every light. The entire weight gain including the extra speed controller is just over 2 oz. I'm running and AXI220834 motor and 11x5.5 E prop with and 8 amp Jeti speed controller to power the motor. The battery I use is a 2100ma 3-Cell Thunder Power 15C battery. I can get at least 30 minutes of flight time, and sometimes more if there is no wind. The last few nights I've been making a pilgrimage to the local school soccer field to do some night flying. I get a kick out of watching people stop and look at this strange flying object. The green lights make it difficult for you to focus your eyes on them but the Slow Stick is so forgiving that if you get disoriented you can just let go of the sticks and it will right it's self. I have to admit this is a load of fun and it's a challenge to navigate at night by just watching the glow of your airplane. I'll include some pictures when I can take enough time to do it.
Gary Morris
Gary Morris