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#1
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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 |
#2
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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 |
#3
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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 |
#4
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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... |
#5
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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 |
#6
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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 |
#7
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![]() 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 |
#8
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![]() "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 |
#9
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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 |
#10
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![]() 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 |
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