A picture perfect time to fly a plane like the K.I.S.S. in Kansas (above left). Between a half hour to an hour of daylight left with a gorgeous sunset in the background and almost no wind! The only real problem involved in flying at this time of day is that visibility (above right) is getting poor. It is starting to get hard to tell what some of the orientation cues are from the plane. Particularly at a
distance when the airplane can be a mere spec. Close up (below left) of the mounting of the 18-inch long string of white LED lights simply adhered to the bottom of the 7mm × 8mm square section graphite tube fuselage. Basic components and sub assemblies (below right) of the wing trailing edge lighting mounts for the K.I.S.S.wing.
As soon as the throttle was advanced on a freshly charged 2-cell pack, with the lights glowing brightly, the lights would go dim as the voltage dropped with the throt- tle advance and the additional load of the motor of some 3–7 amps (about 10–20+ times what the lights would draw). So to make these lights work properly with an
electronic speed control and motor you will need to plan on using a 3-cell Li-Po battery if you want to have lights on your plane. With this information in hand the atten- tion now turned to the wing which proved a little bit more difficult. I wanted the lighting elements removable so that they might be used on another aircraft. These would be the
red and green elements following the custom- ary lighting standards for aircraft with red on the left wing and green on the right wing. The question was where to place them. The pilot is on the ground and the wing has a dihedral tip to expose the lights in a side- ways direction. So a decision was made to place the LED lighting strips along the
Detail of the final assembled lighting mounts (at left) with the epoxy finish applied to the bottom surfaces. Weight (above) of the inboard lighting mount on a scale showing the finished weight of 4.5 grams.
FLYING MODELS 51
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