R/C Helicopter Night Flying

Night Flying

Lately, me and my friends were getting crazy for night flying. Night flying poses a new dimension of r/c helicopter flying. Its VERY EXCITING, and the scene of a helicopter swooshing around the field at night was something so good that could not be described with words! Another version of the night flying page is by Stephen Fan , so you are welcome to visit his page. Here is how we did it:

Background

Night flying was not new. A lot of bigger funfly events in the States already have some top pilots showing their moves with their helicopters at night. These helicopter were equipped with light on the main blades and tiny lights around the helicopter's body that lit like a Christmas tree. When these helicoptr flew the LEDs in the main blades will draw a lighted circle, and it was quite beautiful. However, night flying was still not a popular event amongst local clubs, and I guess the main reason was due to the blades. While it was true that with a helicopter all lit up with lights on the body you could still see the helicopter, but the "cream of the cake" about night flying was a pair of main blades that emit light and draw a light circle while turning at night. I saw a lot of pilots that participated in night flying were flying with blades that lit at night, and most of these blades were either proprietary custom made items, or with regular blades taped with LEDs at the tip. The first option is very hard to come by, and could cost a fortune, and the latter option required some sort of wiring that were very clumsy. In fact, I saw in a magazine that one pilot in Finland clamped a pack of Ni-cds on the center of the rotor head of his Ergo, and run wires to the LED on the tip of the blades to provide power. Imagine what a disaster would be if that Ni-cd was loose!

Luckily, my friend Stephen Fan came across a pair of night blades made by MS Composit of Czech Republic while surfing the net. When Stephen saw those blades, he thought it would be nice to try these blades, and went ahead to order a pair. One day, while we were gathering at Stephen's home, he showed us the blades. The blades was made of carbon, with a semi-transparant section on both the tip and at about 1/4 length from the tip at the leading edge. Hiding inside the transparant sections were red colored LEDs. At the trailing edge near the blade root was a tiny three prong female plug. Inside the blades hid those Ni-cd batteries and the neccessary wirings to power the LEDs in the blades. To turn on those LEDs inside the blades, all one had to do was to plug a provided three prong male connector onto the female plug. The finishing of the blades was very smooth, and they were very stiff. One top F3C pilot who was present commented on the excellance of the airfoil design of the blades. We all felt that with some florensent tubes on the landing gear and the tail boom it will be quite a scene when the helicopter flew at night. Every pilot present that night wanted some of these blades, and I was appointed to buy these blades for them.


*This is the MS night blade for 46 (600mm)*	*Here you could see how those LEDs light in the dark*

After some time, the package from MS Composit arrived at my office. First noted was the packing of the box. MS Composit did a very good job on the outer packaging to make sure that the shipment has not been tampered with ex. factory enroute to their customers, as all the tapes on the box was signed, and the strings that tied up the box had a wax seal. Any tampering with the package will be shown if that seal was broken or those tapes didn't match. I already had confidence on MS Composit's products just by seeing this box. Opening the package was another surprise, the blades were neatly packed in the box, with bubble flims wrapping each and every packets of blades. I took some time to examine each set of blades to check for cracks and breaks and there was none. During my check on each set, I could not resist to note also the quality of these blades, and they were top quality. The finish on the blades were glass smooth, and I could say they were the best I've seen so far. (I have NHP's, TG's, SAB's, Hi-Product's, DY's, Vario's, Hirobo's, K&S's, Rotorsport Pro's and Kalt's carbon blades)

Flying

On 31st May, 1999, a bunch of pilots in Hong Kong was about to set a record: - R/C helicopter flying in a rural field without the use of lighting from the field. Our flying field was in a rural area (Koon Hang, Sai Kung, Hong Kong) where the nearest street lamp was about 5,000 feet away. A total of four pilots participated in this event with their helicopters. All of these helicopter were equipped with MS night blades, and with florensent tubes of various size tied to the landing gears and the tail fins. Some pilots already tried MS's regular carbon blades during daytime, and the feedback of MS's blades were excellent. They were excited to try the night blades to see if they have the same the performance as the regular ones. Everybody present was so excited about this event.


*As a comparision, here's how the field looks daytime*	*and here's how it looks at night!*

*Here's the workbench at the field*	*Pilots were busy preparing their helicopters*

*Another look at the busy workbench*	*Ready to fire off!*

On to the record book, the first pilot who ever flew a r/c helicopter at night time with lights on the helicopter in Hong Kong is Mr. Victor Lee a.k.a. Village Chief. He was flying with a Hirobo Shuttle.


*Village Chief with his Shuttle*	*Village Chief bid farewell to Shuttle!*

*Shuttle ready to go*	*Countdown...3...2...*

*1...*	*Launch!*

At first, Chief was hovering the Shuttle to get himself acquinted to the environment and to check for tracking, only to find it to be spot on. Then feeling better, (and bored, according to Chief) he did circuits around the field. Everyone was excited to see the Shuttle flew in big circuits, full throttled. Chief noted that the blade's aerobatic performance were very good, and it transformed his Shuttle into another machine. At everyone's request, Chief did a loop (More like a 9) with the Shuttle (Its his fourth loop with a helicopter, according to Chief), and everyone's mood was sky high! Chief kept on flying the Shuttle, and laughing out loudly amid everyone's concern about the fuel remaining. Chief finally landed his Shuttle safely, and everyone applause to his performance and guts.

Well Done, Chief!

Then on after Chief is Sleepy Leung. Sleepy was a 3D pilot, and he was well known among the field to be dosing while flying his helicopter inverted, so caused his name. Sleepy brought along his better half, to witness the first one to perform 3D maneouvers at night in Hong Kong. Sleepy flew his Ergo 50 Type 2 CCPM with a Scorpion canopy.


*Mr. and Ms. Sleep*	*Sleep said Hi to the camera*

*Ready...*	*Takeoff!*

Sleepy astonished everyone by tearing the night sky with his high-reving Ergo. After a few circuits Sleepy began flipping, rolling, looping and stall turning the Ergo. Some audience yelled at excitement, and other are just wordless when seeing the Ergo 3Ding. It was quite a scene. Sleepy then flew the Ergo inverted and circling the field (Sleepy was well known to be flying inverted most of the time until the fuel tank ran out). He was sky high, and throughly enjoying himself, while everyone watched with their eyes wide open. Sleepy shocked us once when the Ergo was inverted he lost orientation of it and the Ergo went into a dive and was quickly recovered. That moment was scary and some even prepared to run for shelter just in case if the Ergo was crashing into where the audience stand.


*Ergo flipping*	*Ergo inverted*

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed Sleepy's performance. It really thrilled everyone.


*Well done, Sleepy!*	*Sleepy's better half shot the whole flight with a viewcam*

The third one to fly was Mr. Ming Jim a.k.a. Mr. Mechanics. Ming brought his TSK Mystar 46 to the field.


*Ming busy preparing his Mystar*	*Preparing for takeoff*

*3...2...1...*	*Takeoff!*

Ming hastily assembled his helicopter after a major overhaul that day when he knew of the event, so Ming just hovered the Mystar and flew figure 8s.


*Mystar hovering*	*Mystar at FFF*

When Ming landed his Mystar at last, his words were shuttered, and hands shaking! Ming was thrilled!

Gosh, what a flight!

Finally, at everyone's request, Stephen hovered his helicopter as the forth one to fly at night. Stephen just hovered his helicopters just to have a feeling. I did not flew that night, cause I was the one who took photos.


*Stephen Fan*	*Jason Chan*

Every pilots took turns to fly and we had fun untill midnight, and we went together to have drinks and talked about the flight untill 2:00am! Everybody agrees that night flying is easier than day flying. First, air is cooler so both you and the engine would feel better. Second, there is no glare from the sun. Third, the lights emitted from the blades and the florensent tubes actually makes the helicopter abigger target for sight, not like when in the daytime the only sight points for orientation is just the canopy and boom. Forth, its a "fly by more instinct, less sight" experience (Meaning that it will make a person forget a bit about which way the helicopter was pointing at night, while at daytime the same person might be too scare and did something wrong when he saw the nose was towards himself, so that will make a person fly more wild). Everybody wowed to have more night time flying in the future, and would went home and put some more lights onto their helicopters next time when we met. We had a ball!

Here are our night fly developments - Night Fly Part II

In the future, we would come up with more gadgets to make the fun for night flying better. I would update this page frequently to include our latest developments, so check back often!

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