Night Flying (general thread and questions)

[Billy_boy_2010]

Hi guys

As the nights are drawing in rapidly I thought it was wise to start a night flying thread.

I will start- I wish to add port and starboard lights to my wing to aid viewing and landing. I won't be flying LOS but they may be handy helping my spotter see them. As its a flying wing- where am I best placed to fit them to minimise the aero disturbance and make them their most effective.

Right on the leading edge

An inch or two back from the LE

Right in the middle of the wing

I'm thinking right on the leading edge with some tape over the top to minimise the aero drag effect? Should make the planes return direction easy to spot although outbound won't be easy!

For anyone interested, a pair of strip led lights (one red one green) each about 8" long draw a combined current of about 0.2A. Pretty good I think!

[FPVSteve]

Whatever you do, do it on top and bottom .. Otherwise when you bank in certain directions, they'll become invisible. Made that mistake once and once only :D

[electrotor]

Give your spotter a chance. Top and underside of wing and tail, fuselage sides and possibly sides of fin too. It can easily disappear when you have only a side view.
Leading edge is fairly useless apart from when the model is coming directly towards you.

You don't say what model. If transparent or translucent (like Correx), put the LEDs inside the wing an avoid aerodynamic problems. If not translucent (like thick foam) I would suggest using the thickest part of the wing.

Don't overdo the lights (like I did once) because you will end up with something which dazzles when close and has dreadful aerodynamics. I used a strip with 12 LEDs on each wing half surface. If I was doing this again I would use no more than 6, possibly even just 3.

First pic is Correx built Mugi. Second pic is hugely overdone AXN Cloud - sunglasses required when landing.

[Billy_boy_2010]

Ha those are flying Christmas trees! :D

OK point taken about the leading edge!

That's a very good point about the aero perhaps I will look at getting some shorter ones which will cause less drag- then I can put them on the top and bottom. Or I could run one colour on the top in the middle and one on the bottom- that way I minimise drag. It's a flying wing so no fuselage etc.

[FPVSteve]

If you trawl through some of the videos on the RingebuRC channel (RCGutt) they occassionally show them flying at night (it's Norway) and you can see how well their setups work.

[FPVSteve]

Actually can I add to this thread -does anyone know what the best camera is for flying FPV at night (or twilight) ...

[electrotor]

It's a flying wing so no fuselage etc.

Essential then that you have some king of lighting visible from the side. Not shown on the Mugi were the lights I had on the outside faces of each fin.

Normally LED strips are made in groups of three, each group being in parallel with the next group. You can see this if you look at the tracks. As long as you have at least one group of three you can connect up to a three cell lipo. The current draw is very small in comparison to the current draw of the motor. I calculated the AXN to be around 1.2A for all those lights and it measured at about 1A. You can therefore make an adapter lead and use the balance connector. This saves having a separate battery or breaking into the main power lead.
As this is is a flying wing I'm guessing that the leading edge will be swept back. I would suggest therefore that you follow this swept back angle to create a kind of arrow head shape. This will seriously aid orientation. When night flying you are really flying a pattern of lights.
Incidentally the only time I found head on lights (leading edge) to be useful was when coming in low on finals. I just levelled the lights and brought the model down.

[Jake Bullit]

I`ve just added leds to m Z84,hoping to do some LOS night flying.

I`ve done it with multirotors before,but not planes which I suspect will be a lot harder as you can`t just stop and hover if you lose orientation.

I only had white and blue which are similar,so I put the underside along the leading edge and topside in line with the canopy. Hope it doesn`t affect the airflow as they`re not recessed,if it does they`re coming off.

! No longer available

[Loopdreams]

I did some night flying with a Raven wing last year.  You should be fine with that.  Just don't do what I did and put one super-bright white LED cluster on the top to "aid orientation".  It was so bright that it completely outshone all the other LEDs.  I couldn't see anything except this massively bright point of light.  It was like I was flying the moon.

[krikey]

Currykitten did a good video on this and also some suggestions for cameras and lenses

! No longer available

[Billy_boy_2010]

Really interesting thanks guys. I think lights to land near seem pretty vital too tbh!

[electrotor]

Just another little pointer from experience and one that is blindingly obvious really - take a decent portable light with you for pre & post flight activities.

[FPVSteve]

Flyboysee used to do some fantastic night flying with his Easystar, he had a nice little strobe on the ground that he could see from >2km easily.

[Brucey]

I have done this for a while, but I used to use an IR strobe so that I couldn't be spotted on the ground by the locals

The only vid I have of it
http://youtu.be/sggt2CWWPgM

[FPVSteve]

Got a link to that strobe?