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Tiger Moth Night Flying - 9/11/2003 4:52 PM   
west black


 

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From: woodlands, SINGAPORE
Status: offline 		I would like to do some night flying with my tiger moth 280. can anyone tell what type of LED lights should i use, how am i to connect them together, do they need seperate batteries and are they connected to the ESC or the reciver itself?Any information would be very helpful for me!

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RE: Tiger Moth Night Flying - 9/11/2003 9:13 PM   
BuzzBomber



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From: Newton, NJ, USA
Status: offline 		Curtek Systems offers a ready to install setup. I bought one a few months ago, but sadly have not had the time to put it in my cub just yet. I have heard only positive things about it.

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RE: Tiger Moth Night Flying - 9/11/2003 9:51 PM   
rdeis


 

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From: Colorado Springs, CO, USA
Status: offline 		There are a couple of different systems that have been reviewed over on ezone.

Curtek systems is LED-based, and definately the most scale-looking of them all. Night-ops uses a luminescent strip- almost like sticking a 1/2"x24" piece of scotch tape on the wings, plugging it in, and having it light up. One of the ezone systems is like night-ops , but comes in a smaller package.

Last option is cylums ("glow") sticks. With Haloween coming up, these are a very easy to get and a great way to try night flying out.

I've personally used glowsticks on a 100" sailplane with great success. We run an annual night thermal duration contest with this method, and high altitudes and distances are not unusual (we do keep a fairly strict flight rotation to prevent getting the aircraft mixed up in flight). I've seen night-ops in use, and they are very bright and easier to orient because they are strips instead of dots.

We've experimented with using various colors of glowsticks, and generally find that 3 green ones (each tip and belly) seem best. You'd think that having both wing the same color would invite disorientation, but at least in sailplanes this doesn't seem to be true.

Curtek's website is very cool- I expect they would compare to a cylume setup very well, especially for small aircraft like a TM at relatively close range.


Some tips:

Night fly with an airplane that is trimmed and stable. Also use a plane that you are familliar with. Unexpected behavior is harder to recover from in the dark, but when you're familliar with a planes habits your brain will be amazingly adept at controlling it in the dark even though the visual cues you get are very different.

Make sure the tip lights/glowsticks are mounted such that the wings won't eclipse them. We mount glowsticks so that they stick out a couple inches behind the trailing edge.

When the aircraft is in your hand, the lights shine on the fuse and wings, making the whole plane easy to see. When you let go, this shine will vanish quite suddenly at a range of 6 feet or so and you'll only have the dots of light-- don't panic, the plane is still there and flying just fine. (There aren't words to describe the feeling you get the first time this happens as your contest sailplane goes up on a winch...)

As the plane turns directly toward you or directly away from you, it may become stationary relative to the sky for a moment. When this happens, it may dissapear against the stars. When the lights are stationary relative to the starfield, your eyes write them off as stars themselves and forget about them. As the turn completes and the plane starts to move against the background again you'll pick it up, right where you thought it was. Still, the momentary dissapearance can be very disconcerting. (BTW, if you use Curtek's flashers I doubt this will happen.)

Fly it all the time- this helps prevent disorientation. If the plane banks one way or the other by itself (due to a wind bump or whatever) it can be hard to tell whether it went left or right. When you're on the sticks, you instinctively know how the plane should be reacting to your controls, so it's harder to lose track of what it's doing.

Your depth perception sucks while using the lights, so be very wary of obstacles. You're far more likely to clip that tree that you swore was further or closer at night. This can make landings harder as well- when flying toward you or away from you it is much harder to judge your speed than in the daylight.

Happy night flying!

< Message edited by rdeis -- 9/12/2003 6:08:09 PM >

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RE: Tiger Moth Night Flying - 9/12/2003 3:21 PM   
BuzzBomber



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Status: offline 		Very good advice, rdeis! May I offer another suggestion? I worked my way up to nightflying by flying in a large lit parking lot at night. Give it a test run in daylight to make sure you have room to maneuver. This way you can gradually get used to the way the plane looks in the dark by how close (or far away) from the lights you fly. Just make sure you have plenty of room between light poles (don't ask how I know), and be responsible (make sure no other people are in harm's way, no cars to hit, etc.)

I did this all last winter at a local school, and I think it may help ensure success on the first night flights. The night maintainence man at the school got a kick out of watching us too.

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RE: Tiger Moth Night Flying - 9/12/2003 5:26 PM   
rdeis


 

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Status: offline 		Probably a good idea. The review article on ezone suggests starting to fly at twilight for the same reason- first you're flying just like daylight, but somewhere in the middle of the flight it occurs to you that you can't see the airplane anymore, just the lights. This takes that first moment of sheer panic (which doesn't go away after the first flight) and turns it more toward pleasent astonishment. (-:

The first couple of years of the contest, most virgin night flights were in total darkness- we didn't want to break the glowsticks before the contest began. But since then more guys started to show up early and began to fly practise at twilight either with their own glowsticks or electric lighting systems.

In 9 years of the contest, we have lost ZERO airplanes due to the darkness, and only had one minorly damaged due to the darkness. It can be done!

More than you wanted to know, I'm sure, but this event is a bit of a family tradition so I enjoy talking about it....

A couple of other things (tring to remember all the stuff from the pilot's breifing...):

Wear your glasses, even if you normally wouldn't when flying (like me). Your vision gets blurrier in the dark, so even if you don't normally need them to fly in daylight, you will at night.

Glowsticks are affected by temperature. The colder it gets, the less light they make. Be aware of this if you live in a place where dark brings sudden cold with it.

Looking for a calm day sort of goes without saying, though we have flown successfully in windy conditions. It simply takes more concentration, just like in daylight. If you're comfortable enough with the peculiarities of night flight that there's some room left in your brain for the extra concentration, then go for it. Keeping on the controls becomes even more important due to the plane getting tossed about.

Speaking of wind- you might find some odd weather patterns at night. The two airplanes we *did* lose were the first two launched one year. Each went up about 50 ft on the winch and folded it's wings. The next airplane was much stronger, and revealed that there was a 20+kt wind at 50 ft, even though it was dead calm on the gound. Later flyers were prepared for this windshear and had no trouble with it.

Do your night flying in the DARK. Streetlights and stuff are helpful as long as you stay near them, but if you glance at the light itself, your night vision is hosed. And it takes way too long to come back.

Headlights of passing cars will get you, too, and so will the moon. Avoid looking at them during your flight. Our contest runs on the night of the new moon in the middle of nowhere to avoid this- and latecomers are instructed to approach the field with headlights off to avoid blinding the pilots.

These may or may not apply to a flight that stays within a parking lot at low altitude, but it created a HUGE problem for us, where the planes are several hundred feet up and ranging all over in search of thermals. Even the frequency pins, stopwatches and scoring tables are lit only with glowsticks or red flashlights.

< Message edited by rdeis -- 9/12/2003 6:00:51 PM >

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Lastly, one of the great stories from the first year: - 9/12/2003 5:38 PM   
rdeis


 

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From: Colorado Springs, CO, USA
Status: offline 		President of the club goes for his first night launch- he's well in the middle of the pack, so several pilots have successfully launched and landed- some even found lift and turned in respectable times.

He has a pretty hot airplane, and was one of the earlier members to become comfortable with the "zoom launch" technique. For you guys that aren't familliar with soaring: Older, lighter sailplanes winch up to their maximum launch altitude then let go of the tow line. Sleeker, heavier ships are so strong and slippery that they actually do much better if they go to their max altitude just like the light ones, then have the tow line pull them into a very fast dive. They release the line, then pull out at high Gs, climbing past their previous altitude with the extra speed.

Our pres had the guts to do this in the dark on his first try.

So the winch spins up, and his plane is zooming earthward. He releases the tow, pulls out, and suddenly the lights go in three different directions as if blown apart by a bomb. The crowd watches in stunned silence, with some pilots offering words of consolation at the loss of an airplane that clearly came apart in the high G turn.

He's about to turn his transmitter off and prepare to search for remains when someone says, "Uh, Bob, one of the lights is still floating around up there..."

Some ginger wiggling of the sticks showed that the one light was responding to control input.

About this time, two runners brought back two lost glowsticks- without airplane parts attached.

Turns out that the airplane has zoomed through the high-G climb just fine, but had shed its wingtip lights in the process. Bob was able to limp home and land safely with just the belly light.

And a great time was had by all!

< Message edited by rdeis -- 9/12/2003 6:03:30 PM >

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