By Jeff Borowski

You asked for some additional info on night flying, here is some of mine.

Night flying experience – about 1 year
Modeling experience – 35+ years

I have turned into a night flying maniac as of late.
I am on a constant quest for new stuff to add to my night ship.
I have found that with a very well lit heli I have better visibility and orientation at night than what I have in the daytime. I have found that I am trying new moves at night and then moving them to the daytime.

The biggest NoNo is forgetting to remove the glow starter in the dark and having it come off in flight and go through the main rotor, This caused a boom strike during a ripper and the heli was pretty much destroyed before it crashed.

Heli - Raptor 50 SE
Blades – MS 600

Glowire – www.glowire.com

I am using 40 feet of Glowire and 4 drivers. My rule of thumb is no more than 10 feet of glow wire per driver. You can go longer but the longer the Glowire the dimmer the light. Less than 3 feet of wire will cause burnout of the inverter. I have 20 feet on the canopy with 2 inverters and one battery. The canopy is self-contained to be easy to remove. The other 20 feet is on the frame and tail, again 2 inverters and one battery. I am currently using standard 9V batteries but will be converting to 800mAh 11.1V LiPo. The inverter will handle this and be a little brighter.
Go ahead and mount the battery and drivers on the outside of the canopy where they are easy to get at, no one will see them in the dark.

I also use a LED glow stick or chem. light on each landing gear to aid ground lighting and add redundancy.

I use a white LED on the side of the fuel tank shining into the tank to illuminate it.

I have 4 fireflies mounted just cuz they look cool. Fireflies are a flashing LED that is made to mount on the valve stem of your car tire.

I have a set of custom made lighted tail blades

I am working on some other new things to add to my night toy.

Jeff Borowski
Gohbee Field Rep.
www.gohbee.com Field rep code 0133TD
Use a field rep code when ordering online to get a discount.

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