End of Season Sunset Warning for SSA-OLC Participants

I agree that night flight withing gliding distance of a lighted airport
is not that dangerous(I would probably do it if I could). That is why I
commented specifically about night cross-country flight in gliders.
Night VFR in airplanes has been shown to be many times more dangerous
than Day VFR in the accident record. I would only expect the situation
to be worse without an engine running.

bumper wrote:
"Doug Haluza" wrote in message
ups.com...

Obviously, night cross country
in gliders is very dangerous, due to the possibility of an outlanding
in a dark field, so I hope we don't have to wait until someone dies to
address this.


I've flown my previous glider, a Stemme S10-VT, in wave at night. A most
beautiful and memorable flight. Fields? Dangerous? I stayed within easy
gliding distance of airports with pilot controlled lighting. The Stemme was
equipped with the required position and anit-collision (strobe) lights.

bumper

Doug Haluza wrote:
I agree that night flight withing gliding distance of a lighted airport
is not that dangerous(I would probably do it if I could). That is why I
commented specifically about night cross-country flight in gliders.
Night VFR in airplanes has been shown to be many times more dangerous
than Day VFR in the accident record. I would only expect the situation
to be worse without an engine running.

The vast majority of landings after legal sunset are the result of long
final glides that started before sunset. These are not "night
cross-country flight", except in the legal sense, and would likely have
aborted much earlier if there was doubt about reaching the destination
airport. Legally, they absolutely should be equipped with position
lights, but it is hardly dangerous (and I know of a few people who have
installed lights for precisely this reason). In fact there are a few
places (Tonopah comes to mind) where it would be more dangerous to abort
the final glide at sunset, and try to find someplace else to land, than
it would be to just continue...

Marc

Sounds like poor planning if you don't start your final glide early enough
to get back before sunset and you don't have lights.

Mike Schumann

"Marc Ramsey" wrote in message
...
Doug Haluza wrote:
I agree that night flight withing gliding distance of a lighted airport
is not that dangerous(I would probably do it if I could). That is why I
commented specifically about night cross-country flight in gliders.
Night VFR in airplanes has been shown to be many times more dangerous
than Day VFR in the accident record. I would only expect the situation
to be worse without an engine running.

The vast majority of landings after legal sunset are the result of long
final glides that started before sunset. These are not "night
cross-country flight", except in the legal sense, and would likely have
aborted much earlier if there was doubt about reaching the destination
airport. Legally, they absolutely should be equipped with position
lights, but it is hardly dangerous (and I know of a few people who have
installed lights for precisely this reason). In fact there are a few
places (Tonopah comes to mind) where it would be more dangerous to abort
the final glide at sunset, and try to find someplace else to land, than it
would be to just continue...

Marc

Mike Schumann wrote:
Sounds like poor planning if you don't start your final glide early enough
to get back before sunset and you don't have lights.

We aren't all perfect, like you obviously are...

Marc Ramsey wrote:
Mike Schumann wrote:
Sounds like poor planning if you don't start your final glide early
enough to get back before sunset and you don't have lights.

We aren't all perfect, like you obviously are...


Why would planning to meet an arrival time be any more demanding than
the other planning and decision making that glider pilots do?

It's not a matter of perfection, it's a matter of priorities.


Jack

For an example of good planning, see Brian Collins' article in the
February 2006 Soaring magazine.

588 wrote:
Marc Ramsey wrote:
Mike Schumann wrote:
Sounds like poor planning if you don't start your final glide early
enough to get back before sunset and you don't have lights.

We aren't all perfect, like you obviously are...


Why would planning to meet an arrival time be any more demanding than
the other planning and decision making that glider pilots do?

It's not a matter of perfection, it's a matter of priorities.


Jack

Marc Ramsey wrote:
lights, but it is hardly dangerous (and I know of a few people who have
installed lights for precisely this reason). In fact there are a few

So Mark, any chance of enlighetning(!) us about these installations?
I'm very interested in finding out how it was done both technically and
of course the legalities for my Standard airworthiness ASH-26E.

Thanks,
-Tom

"5Z" wrote in message
oups.com...

Marc Ramsey wrote:
lights, but it is hardly dangerous (and I know of a few people who have
installed lights for precisely this reason). In fact there are a few

So Mark, any chance of enlighetning(!) us about these installations?
I'm very interested in finding out how it was done both technically and
of course the legalities for my Standard airworthiness ASH-26E.

Thanks,
-Tom


There was a long thread on rec.aviation.homebuilding last year about home
made LED position lights. It turned out that the FAA specs are pretty
lenient - easily met with high-brightness LED's. The gist is that if you
met the FAA angular, brightness and color specifications, you could build
your own lights and get them signed of - at least for an experimental
airworthiness certificate.

I have seen pictures of glider winglets with red or green plastic (Plexi?)
tips that had high brightness LED's imbedded in them. Looking at the
current draw of these LED arrays it appears that a couple of "D" size
lithium batteries in each winglet would power them for 12 - 24 hours. That
would mean they could be left on for the entire flight so no in-wing wiring
or switches would be needed.

There is also a Nimbus 4DM in, I think, Argentina with an array of ultra
high brightness Luxeon white LED's on the landing gear as a landing light.
I doubt even these would actually light up a runway but they would be bright
enough to produce visible reflections from runway stripes and edge
reflectors.

Bill Daniels

Interesting. will these LED lights can also help the more common issue
of visibility during day time?

Ramy

Bill Daniels wrote:
"5Z" wrote in message
oups.com...

Marc Ramsey wrote:
lights, but it is hardly dangerous (and I know of a few people who have
installed lights for precisely this reason). In fact there are a few

So Mark, any chance of enlighetning(!) us about these installations?
I'm very interested in finding out how it was done both technically and
of course the legalities for my Standard airworthiness ASH-26E.

Thanks,
-Tom


There was a long thread on rec.aviation.homebuilding last year about home
made LED position lights. It turned out that the FAA specs are pretty
lenient - easily met with high-brightness LED's. The gist is that if you
met the FAA angular, brightness and color specifications, you could build
your own lights and get them signed of - at least for an experimental
airworthiness certificate.

I have seen pictures of glider winglets with red or green plastic (Plexi?)
tips that had high brightness LED's imbedded in them. Looking at the
current draw of these LED arrays it appears that a couple of "D" size
lithium batteries in each winglet would power them for 12 - 24 hours. That
would mean they could be left on for the entire flight so no in-wing wiring
or switches would be needed.

There is also a Nimbus 4DM in, I think, Argentina with an array of ultra
high brightness Luxeon white LED's on the landing gear as a landing light.
I doubt even these would actually light up a runway but they would be bright
enough to produce visible reflections from runway stripes and edge
reflectors.

Bill Daniels

Ramy wrote:
Interesting. will these LED lights can also help the more common issue
of visibility during day time?

Well, police cars and motorcycles around here are starting to use them.
I visted a couple websites that sell arrays to be mounted on an auto
sunvisor, for example. They have programmable flash patterns and come
in various colors. The specs were 1/3 to 1/2 amp current draw on the
cigarette lighter plug. But this is for fairly rapid flashing. If we
were to flash every 5-10 seconds, the draw may be reasonable.

-Tom