Tips for flying at night?

[londonguy]

Thinking about trying some night flying. Any tips?

Do you need to have lots of LED's on your plane or do you just fly FPV all the way?

I was thinking of trying it but the area I had in mind has no lights, so trees etc.. probably be impossible to see. But I was thinking of strapping a few bike LED lights to my tripod which would stand out so I know where to land.

[jiberjaber]

I have one of the 600TVL SONY SUPER HAD CCD D-WDR cameras and last night I had a feeling it would be dark when I took off, so just before, I started the engine on my car in teh field and switched on the lights thinking I might need something to get me home as well as the OSD.

I flew around for another 30 mins and then decided to land as I was running low on juice.

Imagine my suprise when I took of my goggles to see how dar it was!

The camera had gone in to night more (B&W) and I hadnt noticed as I was to busy messing around trying to sort out the RTH on the OSD.....

I wouldnt have taken off in that level of light normally.  So I was impressed with the low light responce.

I have ordered a couple of LED clusters from HK for the Bixler so will see what they are like and might venture in to some nocturnal activities

If you are going to try it, make sure it is a field with no trees or hoodies to stab you in the dark!

An interesting side note... I one needed to get out and trim a DLG (discus launch glider) as I was going to sell it that week... it was dark by the time I was getting hom from work so I thought I would nip up the road to one of the parks which is well lit and give it a quick chuck and trim out flight.  Being yellow / light wood coloured on top shouild be no problem right?

So launched it.. as it left my hand I remembered it was a dark blue under the wings and carbon pod and boom... instant invisable glider - only visable knife edge (i.e. with the top showing)... queue frantic abrupt roll manouvers to try and get it down to the ground without it dissapearing in to the dark....  remember it is out of trim, so each time it reappears isnt where you might have expected it to be.... oh what a laugh! I managed to get it down in a quite hurried way so a log of ground speed as it came in.. and upon going to get it realised it was about 0.5m from a tree!  LUCKY!!!

So there you go - two sides to the coin for night flying LOL...  just keep away from the trees

Check out some of Paul and Angelos's night time FPV stuff, UFO over didcot etc.  looks a good hoot...   

[MrBen]

a long strip of leds on your tripod or on teh ground would surely help matters, plus obviously an OSD to tell you where home is, I plan on night flying the slipstream, Im gonna chuck a few lights on that too, mainly just to spook people out, I will be flying FPV all the way!

[mrholozip]

always wondered what a cheapo cam with the IR filter removed and a couple of 12v IR spotlights slung underneath would be like.

stick a lens on one of these 5w monster IR LEDs:

Tree dodging in the dark...