Night-fly Airplane... how to glowire it?

[Michael211_2000]

I'm planning on building a new night-fly airplane (.60 size engine) and would like to integrate glowire into the aircraft. Idealy, I'd like it to stand out in the darkness with the glowire tracing out as much of the airplane's structure as possible... ie. I want it to look like a glowire airplane.

What's the best way to run the glowire on this plane? I'll be building it from scratch from plans. I've already done a .40 sized version of this plane w/o glowire and I know it flies very well and predictably.

The fuselage I think should be pretty easy to trace in glowire, just go along all the edges and around the cockpit area and leading edge of the tail surfaces... but how do you install the wire on the wing without disrupting the airflow? Or does the small diameter of the glowire not really bother the airflow enough to be a concern?

I haven't seen any good pics of glowire lit-up airplanes so far. If anybody has some I'd love to see them for reference!

Thanks!

- Michael

[GallopingGhost]

The only plane I have used glow wire on was a Foam wing and I taped nylon tube to the wing edges and slid the wire inside it. It was soo easy.

[healthyfatboy]

I haven't tried flying with it yet but I just used a little scotch tape and packing tape every 6 inches or so on my Slow Stick to get it on the plane. Hopefully it will stick but I'll find out when I go flying with it when I get the connectors finished.

[Michael211_2000]

Pics, please! I'd like to see what the slow-stick looks like, how you routed your wires. I'd like this plane to be permanently setup with the glowire so I'm not worried about ever having to take it off again.

Thanks!

- Michael

[GallopingGhost]

For what its worth I am running the wire on a 300 MAH 2 cell pack. :)

[Michael211_2000]

Well that's interesting looking, Ghost. Very kewl. But the plane I'll be building for night-flying is a more standard design.... here's a pic of the .40 size day fly version I have already built:

[Michael211_2000]

I intend to scale the plans up to a .60 size plane (with a 65 inch wingspan) to build this summer, and would like to integrate glowire on this one... tracing the cockpit area out in red glowire should be simple and straight forward, as well as the tail feathers and fuselage.... but I'm unclear how to do a wing in glowire. Should I run it along the leading and trailing edges or do 2 sets of wire with 1 on top of the wing and 1 on the underside (using 2 different colors for top and bottom of course). I want this plane to look like itself in the dark as much as possible.

I know that most people say you should use an old beatup slow flying trainer airplane for night flying, but this plane flies so nicely (even though the 0 dihedral wing does not self-right at all).... it's easy to fly in the daylight, and a larger version of it should only fly that much better! I'm also thinking of putting a white led light deep down inside the cockpit area to illuminate the cockpit from within as well as having red glowire tracing out the cockput windscreen.

Oh here's an idea that just occurred to me! Maybe run red glowire out on the wingtips (where it's already red) top and bottom on the inside (where red meets white) and then along the edge.... would make the tips really stand out! Then do white glowire along the rest of the leading edge (where the wing is white) and trailing edge (top and bottom.... can't run it along the aileron's I suppose so would have to be inboard of them).

Thoughts?

Thanks.

- Michael

[healthyfatboy]

I would do it in a way that you can't mess up the orientation of the plane regardless of which way it's flying.
It's probably a huge picture and not in focus very well but it gives you an idea of what it looks like. Basically, it's around the end of the wings and then down the stick fuselage and outlines the tail and vertical stabilizer. Hopefully I'll be able to fly it when I get the connectors from the battery. Still debating on the best way to do it.

[Michael211_2000]

Interesting... did you run the glowire along the edge of the elevator as well? I can't see the back of the wing, does it have ailerons and if so does the glowire run along them too? How'd you adhere the glowire to the model, or did you tape it on? I was thinking that canopy glue might work well to adhere glowire.

- Michael

[Kelbin]

Hello to all. I was at SEFF this year and was able to see some pretty good night flying going on. I saw one plane that had what looked to be a neon "tape" type strip lighting on it. These strips were connected to the receiver on a spare channel.
Ive seen the glow wire, but this was flat, about 3/4" wide and who knows how long.
Does anyone have any idea what this stuff is called? I am having a hard time finding it.
Thanks for any help.
Kelbin

[healthyfatboy]

They have flat glowire available. I can't remember if it was coolights.com or something like that but there is some flat stuff available.
Okay, I just checked. It's www.coolight.com and they have what is called EL tail wire. It's not completely flat but it looks like it gives you a good place to mount using the flat spot of the wire.
Michael,
I just taped the glowire onto the plane using scotch tape and packing tape. I don't know how well it will hold but it's on there.
The blue (7.5ft) wasn't quite long enough to go all the way around the main wing. It starts at about the middle of where the ailerons would be and goes to the same spot on the other side. The Slow Stick doesn't have ailerons but they can be put on if someone wants to.
The wire does go all the way around the elevator. I haven't really tried it out yet so I don't know if it will affect how the elevator moves but I tried to leave it loose at the hinge points so it wasn't too tight and would have some room to move around.
I'm out of town until Tuesday and probably won't get to work on it until after that even but I'll try and keep up and post when I get a flight in. Good luck

[GregG]

936997

Last couple of times that I did this, I used plain ol' round glowire scotch taped to the perimeter of the wing, tailfeathers, and fuse. One 10' length around the wing and the other 10' length for the fuse and tail. Mind you, this is a .40 sized glow airframe that was converted.

The neat thing about outlining the tailfeathers is it's very easy to see the orientation while flying.

[Michael211_2000]

Looks nice Greg! Did you run the glowire around the control surfaces as well? How'd you deal with the ailerons and elevator/rudder?

20 feet of glowire total huh? Wow! :eek: Takes alot of glowire to outline an aircraft... I shouldn't be suprised I guess as it took 10 feet of glowire to do my 400 sized electric heli (5 feet for the canopy alone!).

I guess that for a 60 sized airplane I should probably buy a roll of glowire and cut and solder the ends on myself. :confused:

Thanks for sharing!

- Michael