My Cessna is coming along well. I also bought the lights from Electro Dynamics and found people there both communicative and extremely helpful.
I ended up buying the "complete set" because I wanted control over all the lights, or the ability to switch on or off all the lights, rather than the default of having the Nav lights come on when the receiver switch is turned on.
It was only after I started playing with the lights that I discovered the 3-stage switch assumes the first output to go active upon getting power from the battery, meaning the red/green lights and the tail group lights would always be on.
A solution to that would have been a second switch and due to the high postage cost and my impatience getting the plane flying, I decided not to proceed with that.
The outcome was that I have an Rcexl kill switch controlling the power to the lighting system. The kill switch connects to channel 9 in the receiver and the nav lights controller connects to channel 10.
The sequence now is this:
Upon powering on the plane, all lights are off.
Flip an assigned switch on the Tx and the red/green tip lights plus the tail group comes on
A 3-position switch on the Tx then turns on the strobes in the middle position and the landing lights in the top position.
My next plan will be to come up with a mixer that automatically turns on landing lights when the flaps are extended
Here are a couple of short videos of the plane with the lights on:
http://s105.photobucket.com/user/apa...288-1.mp4.html
http://s105.photobucket.com/user/apa...289-1.mp4.html
On another note, yesterday we had a small fly-in at our new field. Several select guests were invited so we had some 30 pilots flying.
Even though the wind was strong (up to 20Kts) it didn't stop the flying and we all had a ball!
Our new club is a small but growing one with membership tightly controlled to let in active modellers / pilots only. We have chosen this way to avoid the politicking that plagues other clubs, often caused by members who have little interest in actively advancing and promoting the flying and building of model planes but see the clubs as an outlet for their desires for power games and control.
The new field is coming along great with a 170m long and 25m wide runway with no obstructions or other limitations. The land owner was even kind enough to spend a day with his bobcat levelling and smoothing the runway.
Later this year, we hope to run several non-competitive events or fly-ins to raise some needed funds for facilities.