night flying forum
12-30-2008, 03:21 AM
#3
RE: night flying forum
Suprised no one's brought it up before now, but I do a LOT of night flying. I have a Parkzone T-28, Super Cub, J-3bl, and a Slo-v that I fly at nigh. Each rigged up a little differently. I probably fly the T-28 and the Super Cub the most because they handle a light wind a little better than the other two.
01-01-2009, 11:43 PM
#4
RE: night flying forum
Nobody else has chimed in yet. Does anyone else fly at night?
I work day shift 6 months of the year and night shift the other 6. When I am on night shift rotation, I often find myself awake at 2am on nights off or not hungry on my lunch break and needing something to relieve stress for an hour. So I rigged up several of my planes for flying at night. Had quite a few crashes in the process of configuring the lights on each of my "night planes" . I guess, for the sake of sharing useless information and keeping this thread going, I'll share what I did to each of my planes:
First one I flew at night was the Parkzone J3-bl. Its also the smallest and most senstive to weight and Center of Gravity placement, so I crashed it the most and probably learned the most from it. First, I tried the "night flight" module that hobbyzone sells for some of its planes. The rx on the J3 has xport, but it is not mounted outside the plane so I bought an extension cable from hobbyzone and ran it through the bottom of the fuse, and velcro'd it to the bottom. This works ok up close, but is not visible in all orientations and is hard to distiquish orientation/degree of bank etc. if is far away.
Next I bought a neon light strip from the Lhs that plugged right into the reciever and had a switch to make it steady or blinking. Tried different positions for the lights and decided running them under the wings and steady instead of blinking worked best, this was ok but it still wasn't enough to keep track of the plane's orientaion in some postions.
Next, I ordered some white,red, and blue Led's and some red and blue blinking Led's from Super Bright Led. Then I stipped some 26 guage wire out of some scrap Cat5 cable, ordered a selection of resistors from Reidon, and tried a couple different set ups using different power sources and configurations. One of thes was putting a blinking led on each wing tip, white led on the underside of the nose, and red led on the underside of the tail and all powered from a small 3cell button battery pack taken from a broken kids toy led pen light. This worked the best of the led set ups, but I still lost track of the plane when making a steep banked turn.
Cg and weight was also a problem so I finally ended up going back to the neon strips along the underside of the wings combined with the white led nose light, steady red tail light, and a red blinking light on top of the fuse to help keep track of it in steep turns. All this is powered from the reciever with a micro switch mounted thru the bottom of the fuse.
Works great , does shorten flight times a little, but I still get 10 min on the stock 800mAh 2cell lipo.
Second plane I experiment with was the T-28. Because this plane is white, it is more visible if there is any outside lights around or a good bright moon. By this time, I ran across some small plastic Led key chains powered by two Cr2016 watch batteries. They were $1 each so I bought 2 dozen of them. I removed the key chain, put velcro on the back, and attached one to the bottom of the nose, and one on top of each wing about 5" from the fuse and facing foward. Then I put one on the underside of each wing tip and changed the led to a red blinking and a blue blinking. I also put one with a steady red led on the bottom of the tail. This works great and allows me to see the plane in any orientation. Using the velcro also allows me to take the lights off easily if I want to. Only downside is I have to turn each light on and off individually instead of one master switch.
The Super Cub and the Slo-v are also white, and the plastic key chain lights worked so well on the T-28 that I used them again.
The Slo-V was a little more senstive to weight so I just used 3 key chain lights on it. Put a red blinking and blue blinking under the wings about midway from the fuse and facing out. Since the wings are so thin, you can still see the lights thru the wings even when the plane is steeply banked. I put the other light under the reciever but modified it a little. I Put the inluded white led facing forward, but drilled a couple small holes thru the plastic case and added a red steady led that faces back. Had to take the plastic case apart, solder a couple short leads of 26guage wire and run thu the case to attach the led to. Works well!
Each key chain light will last for about 6 to 10 flights. Downside is the replacement cr2016 batteries cost more than the key chain lights did!!!
Ok time for someone else to chime in!
I work day shift 6 months of the year and night shift the other 6. When I am on night shift rotation, I often find myself awake at 2am on nights off or not hungry on my lunch break and needing something to relieve stress for an hour. So I rigged up several of my planes for flying at night. Had quite a few crashes in the process of configuring the lights on each of my "night planes" . I guess, for the sake of sharing useless information and keeping this thread going, I'll share what I did to each of my planes:
First one I flew at night was the Parkzone J3-bl. Its also the smallest and most senstive to weight and Center of Gravity placement, so I crashed it the most and probably learned the most from it. First, I tried the "night flight" module that hobbyzone sells for some of its planes. The rx on the J3 has xport, but it is not mounted outside the plane so I bought an extension cable from hobbyzone and ran it through the bottom of the fuse, and velcro'd it to the bottom. This works ok up close, but is not visible in all orientations and is hard to distiquish orientation/degree of bank etc. if is far away.
Next I bought a neon light strip from the Lhs that plugged right into the reciever and had a switch to make it steady or blinking. Tried different positions for the lights and decided running them under the wings and steady instead of blinking worked best, this was ok but it still wasn't enough to keep track of the plane's orientaion in some postions.
Next, I ordered some white,red, and blue Led's and some red and blue blinking Led's from Super Bright Led. Then I stipped some 26 guage wire out of some scrap Cat5 cable, ordered a selection of resistors from Reidon, and tried a couple different set ups using different power sources and configurations. One of thes was putting a blinking led on each wing tip, white led on the underside of the nose, and red led on the underside of the tail and all powered from a small 3cell button battery pack taken from a broken kids toy led pen light. This worked the best of the led set ups, but I still lost track of the plane when making a steep banked turn.
Cg and weight was also a problem so I finally ended up going back to the neon strips along the underside of the wings combined with the white led nose light, steady red tail light, and a red blinking light on top of the fuse to help keep track of it in steep turns. All this is powered from the reciever with a micro switch mounted thru the bottom of the fuse.
Works great , does shorten flight times a little, but I still get 10 min on the stock 800mAh 2cell lipo.
Second plane I experiment with was the T-28. Because this plane is white, it is more visible if there is any outside lights around or a good bright moon. By this time, I ran across some small plastic Led key chains powered by two Cr2016 watch batteries. They were $1 each so I bought 2 dozen of them. I removed the key chain, put velcro on the back, and attached one to the bottom of the nose, and one on top of each wing about 5" from the fuse and facing foward. Then I put one on the underside of each wing tip and changed the led to a red blinking and a blue blinking. I also put one with a steady red led on the bottom of the tail. This works great and allows me to see the plane in any orientation. Using the velcro also allows me to take the lights off easily if I want to. Only downside is I have to turn each light on and off individually instead of one master switch.
The Super Cub and the Slo-v are also white, and the plastic key chain lights worked so well on the T-28 that I used them again.
The Slo-V was a little more senstive to weight so I just used 3 key chain lights on it. Put a red blinking and blue blinking under the wings about midway from the fuse and facing out. Since the wings are so thin, you can still see the lights thru the wings even when the plane is steeply banked. I put the other light under the reciever but modified it a little. I Put the inluded white led facing forward, but drilled a couple small holes thru the plastic case and added a red steady led that faces back. Had to take the plastic case apart, solder a couple short leads of 26guage wire and run thu the case to attach the led to. Works well!
Each key chain light will last for about 6 to 10 flights. Downside is the replacement cr2016 batteries cost more than the key chain lights did!!!
Ok time for someone else to chime in!
01-06-2010, 06:56 AM
#5
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RE: night flying forum
Someone else here!
I fly at night when I can weather and equipment permitting. Have a losi Speed t with 2 Dimension Engineering pnp LEDs that hookup directly to rx,
several El wire strings for car/helis, and my most recent acquisition, Nvision fins and lightnin rods from flexyourrex.com yet to be installed. the lightnin rods are the coolest
feature, they are clear plastic rods(acrylic?) lit on the ends by bright LEDs, they shine green with the help of what looks like green foil coating 1/2 of the rods. Planning to attach
these to my already well illuminated blade400. My blade also has the k and b dream designs (kbdd) glow in the dark tail blades with a 12v uv led(also uninstalled, I so lazy). The
coup de grace will be a clear canopy from either the gazaur mars or poseidon, UV reactive paints, and 3 or 4 more uv LEDs. Oh yeah, Im also using stock align 3k night blades
until I finish my custom night blades. I hope night flying gets its own forum. Its easier to maintain orientation when night flying rc helis, and It looks too cool. BTW goto youtube
and search for "Ghost Rider 450 rc helicopter Maiden Flight." Too cool
I fly at night when I can weather and equipment permitting. Have a losi Speed t with 2 Dimension Engineering pnp LEDs that hookup directly to rx, several El wire strings for car/helis, and my most recent acquisition, Nvision fins and lightnin rods from flexyourrex.com yet to be installed. the lightnin rods are the coolest
feature, they are clear plastic rods(acrylic?) lit on the ends by bright LEDs, they shine green with the help of what looks like green foil coating 1/2 of the rods. Planning to attach
these to my already well illuminated blade400. My blade also has the k and b dream designs (kbdd) glow in the dark tail blades with a 12v uv led(also uninstalled, I so lazy). The
coup de grace will be a clear canopy from either the gazaur mars or poseidon, UV reactive paints, and 3 or 4 more uv LEDs. Oh yeah, Im also using stock align 3k night blades
until I finish my custom night blades. I hope night flying gets its own forum. Its easier to maintain orientation when night flying rc helis, and It looks too cool. BTW goto youtube
and search for "Ghost Rider 450 rc helicopter Maiden Flight." Too cool
