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Old August 16th 12, 01:32 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default Avoid head-on collision? Forward facing LED strobe?

Firing off a high intensity strobe inside your cockpit is likely to be extremely distracting to the pilot due to all the canopy reflections. You can try with a decent size photographic flash gun to get some and see how bad it is. In my DG-303 cockpit I would often wear darker trousers and shoes to avoid canopy reflections, so I don't expect this to be a workable mounting location. But mounting LED strobes at the wingtips and pulling wires down the D tube in front of the spar should not be hard. There are already one ASH-31Mi flying in the USA with factory fitted strobe options.

Reflections can be eliminated with a reflector that mates to the curvature of the canopy. One could mount it in the nose, but this would involve significant glass work. Another option are aircraft specific LED strobes. I would even put up with the reflections to prevent a mid-air.

Tom