K.I.S.S. Nightlights
Just because the sun sets doesn’t mean you can’t keep flying!
PHOTOGRAPHY: DANIEL WALTON O
ne of the major problems with the flying of light weight or light wing loading model aircraft in Kansas is the wind factor. This can be miti- gated to some extent by flying near dawn or dusk on days when the weather is favorable and the wind will begin to abate around that time of day, but there is one problem with this strategy: the light factor. It will soon be- come a problem particularly in the evening when it quickly becomes too dark to really tell what the plane is actually doing. A very stable plane like the K.I.S.S., documented elsewhere in this issue, will help with this problem somewhat, but you must still be very careful when flying under these conditions. This article provides another way to help deal with the visibility problem although it does come with an slight increase in weight (34.5 grams for this aircraft) and an increase in cost (slightly larger factor, about $30.00 in this case). However, the increase in flying time quickly overrides this outlay, particu- larly if your daytime work schedule is chew- ing up what little free time you might have left to you and your flying skills are begin- ning to atrophy under these conditions. I had seen some articles and demonstra-
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tions on modifying model aircraft for night flying in the past, but many either involved glow sticks or wiring up individual grain of wheat type light bulbs and similar products inside translucent mylar covered aircraft. Then late last year at the local hobby shop I was introduced to a newer product that had a great deal of potential. This was a con- tinuous strip of LEDs on a flexible copper printed circuit that comes on a reel that al- most looks like a reel of 8mm movie film. The strip can be trimmed to length as re- quired and the connector wired on to the strip. The strip also has an adhesive backing that has a very high sticking factor on a smooth, clean, non-porous surface. The lights will light up at anywhere be- tween 8 to 12 volts and they are quite bright. They draw only about .10 watt per foot of length and weigh about 8 grams per 36 inch- es of length and come in bright white, red, blue, green, yellow, violet, and even mixed colors. For further information you can find more information on this and similar prod- ucts on several web sites listed in the box. The K.I.S.S. seemed the perfect test air- craft for trying these lighting strips out (Think ParkZone Night Vapor on steroids).
The model had a generous amount of wing area, good stable flying characteristics with easy handling, uses simple construction and is easily modified for this purpose. The first order of business was to figure out the best way to attach the various strips for lighting and the most visible configuration. It turns out that the K.I.S.S. fuselage is very close to ³⁄₈-inch square graphite tube that very closely matches the width of the LED lighting strips. They are an almost perfect fit. I just cut the strip to about an 18-inch length at the closest trim demarkation with the pig tail and connector already soldered in place on the other end with proper polar- ity, then remove the backing that covers the adhesive and simply align with the bottom of the graphite fuselage section and press to adhere. Already there’s one-third of the lighting installed on the aircraft. One of my first tests involved using only the white lights to test out the basics of what was really required to make this all work and although the lights do light up on a 2- cell Li-Po battery pack (8.4V with a full charge)—I had used this to fly the K.I.S.S. in the past on a regular basis—this would not work with these LED strings.
AUGUST 2013 By Daniel Walton
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