Been taking a break from helis and really enjoying my GWS slow sticks. I few buddies are into night flying and got me into it.

Night Flying is really a lot of fun and these slow sticks give you a nice sized, easy to fly and inexpensive planes work very well for this. They are easy to learn on and I think easier to fly and get your orientation with a good light pattern. You'll see on mine that I have RED and White on top and Blue and Green on the bottom. The arrow design makes orientation very easy to see a lot of fun to fly.

Now that I have enough experience flying. I'm now able to fly it in the street out front and it brings out all the neighbors to come see the UFO lol.


Cheap setup:

- GWS Slowstick - $30 (Basic plane)
- 1050 Alpha 370 -$11 Hobbypartz.com
- 30amp ESC - $11 Hobbypartz.com ( yes you could use 18amp +)
- 2 x Tpro Servos - $6
- LED Lights - about $40 from hobbyking for all the colors and enough for 2 planes.
- Dubro Wheels and Linkage $10
- Cheap 2.4 RX/TX $30-50 depending on what you get.
- Steerable tail wheel for slow sticks $5 - LHS

That's it, well except for all the soldering and wiring

The slow stick is a fine flyer as it is but you can really stiffen it up and get a little more our of it. It's very durable and if you crash, tape and CA typically fix you right up in a few minutes.

There are a few mods I did to improve the overall performance and longevity of the plane.

1. Down and right thrust. 2 washers takes care of this. You want to do this as you are adding a lot of weight with the lights and mods so this helps the plane fly straight and hands off once trimmed.

2. Carbon rod and clear packing tape to make the folds in the rudder and elevator. Then taped the rest of the ruder and stabilizer. This really stiffens up the tail and improves the performance.

3. Upgraded linkage hardware - The stuff that comes with it works but these are better (see pics) Gotta Love Dubro

4. Fixed the flimsy landing gear by adding a piece of music wire about the same thickness as the stock landing gear. Use that as an axle and attach it to the stock landing gear with wire and solder. Cover it with shrink wrap and your done

6. Steerable tail wheel - This upgrade is a must and works ok as it comes. But I upgraded the thickness of the tail wheel wire to the same thickness as the front landing gear. I'll go more into this later....

7. Night lights - This takes a while. Get the strip led lights from hobbyking as they are the cheapest. Cut them into the 3 LED sections and tin the little soldiering spots. Lay them all out on the plane and then measure out the amount of wire and start soldering ( It's easy to tie things in to each other at it's all 12v and runs direct on the battery, see my pics) Tin everything first to avoid cold solders joints on the little circle spots.

8. Weights for the nose when you set your CG. Front mount your 2200Mah 11.1v lipos under the esc just behind the motor

Nightfly in the street (1 min 38 sec)

Check out a flight of it and other night flying slowsticks on my youtube

http://www.youtube.com/user/bbrstorm
Dan

Thats awesome! I like the LEDs that are spaced out. That is an awesome idea and looks great. We have been flying slow sticks forever and have only done one slow stick with lights. Our "night" stick

Originally Posted by verticalspark

Thats awesome! I like the LEDs that are spaced out. That is an awesome idea and looks great. We have been flying slow sticks forever and have only done one slow stick with lights. Our "night" stick

Excellent!

It's really a sight to see when there's 5-7 of us up in the air at once. All different shapes and designs.

Best, most relaxing flying experience

Dan