Flight:
Most if if not all Back country strips are daytime VFR only . Many moons ago I flew all night long from a 1200 ft. Strip -runway lights courtesy of "smudge pots".Lit them up at sundown and put them out following morning . The flagman carried a similar pot on end of
11ft. flag pole . Later on (after one too many fires in fields ) flagmen would carry a 11ft. flag pole with one of those blinking yellow lights. I installed a few of the "construction sawhorses " with lights at the ranch ---Just turn them when you leave and it'll be lit when you get back. One side will do just land to the left or right .These should do http://www.brandonsafetylights.com/solarpowered.htm . Do it several times during the late afternoon to get down before attempting it at night. Put RED light on both ends to say land after this point and stop before this.Use the SPOT landing method per Mountain Flying Bible.It also helps to have 296 or better to "see " the terrain at night. I also have several thousand hours flying with Night vision goggles in helicopters , "0" depth perception but decent visibility in darkness. I don't like cross country flights at night - locally within 50 or so miles are ok. Usually much smoother at night .

Thanks Bill,
I bookmarked the page and this will keep me from having to bury 4000 feet of wire for landing lights like some guys buddy I read about. Now if I can figure a way to keep hunters from taking them.

There are some automatic solar self charging driveway lights available that might be interesting and less expensive. Harbor Freight has them for ten or twelve dollars, and they don't flash. Probably not that bright, you'd have to make your own "approach plate" for GPS that would get you on short final before you saw the lights. Also, the driveway lights are set up to illuminate the ground not the sky, so you would have to remove the "lampshade" hood. But the basic mechanism is there to have something that charges itself in daylight and lights up at night.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/d ... mber=92067

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/ ... _200326732

http://www.amazon.com/Certified-Ultra-B ... d_sbs_k_11

The way to keep them secure against theft would be to hook up the PCL "pilot controlled lighting" system, where you click your mike five times and it turns the lights on. That way the only time the lights are on is when you are around.

The choices in runway lighting solar powered could be more then the stick in the ground,garden pathway type. Recent advantages in LED lighting really has changed things in the low voltage world. Their minuscule power consumption means much less other equipment cost, wiring/cabling one of them. Using 30+ years of direct experience with solar and wind system, both on and off grid, if I wanted a bullet proof, low/zero maintenance, lighting system I'd consider the following:
A series of underground battery vaults, using the fiberglass boxes used for sprinkler systems, they'd be out of the way, protected from heat and cold extremes, but easily accessible. Near each battery would be the PV module, complete with charge controller of course, to charge that particular battery. These power modules could be spaced accordingly so that the battery would be central to a string of lights leading off left and right, and the cabling, thanks to the efficiency of the LED's, could be fairly light gauge, going to a 24 VDC system would of course be the way to go,rather then 12 VDC. So,say you had one power module serving 500', The exact coverage length being determined by the economics of wire sizing/voltage loss/battery sizing etc. A 4000' runway would not be a problem, and you'd have some redundancy. How to turn them all off and on by command eludes me, doing it by auto lighting control is easy, but them the system would have to larger then if just used intermittently. The batteries would be sealed gel type with no scheduled maintenance, the LED's and the PV modules would last for decades. For the best info on solar out there go to http://www.homepower.com, their advertisers include specialists in PV based out door lighting. Speaking of which, the sun has come over the mountain, I am going flying! BTW I would not use Harbor Freight junk solar to light my dog house, buy quality its cheaper in the long run.

courierguy wrote:The choices in runway lighting solar powered could be more then the stick in the ground,garden pathway type. Recent advantages in LED lighting really has changed things in the low voltage world. Their minuscule power consumption means much less other equipment cost, wiring/cabling one of them. Using 30+ years of direct experience with solar and wind system, both on and off grid, if I wanted a bullet proof, low/zero maintenance, lighting system I'd consider the following:
A series of underground battery vaults, using the fiberglass boxes used for sprinkler systems, they'd be out of the way, protected from heat and cold extremes, but easily accessible. Near each battery would be the PV module, complete with charge controller of course, to charge that particular battery. These power modules could be spaced accordingly so that the battery would be central to a string of lights leading off left and right, and the cabling, thanks to the efficiency of the LED's, could be fairly light gauge, going to a 24 VDC system would of course be the way to go,rather then 12 VDC. So,say you had one power module serving 500', The exact coverage length being determined by the economics of wire sizing/voltage loss/battery sizing etc. A 4000' runway would not be a problem, and you'd have some redundancy. How to turn them all off and on by command eludes me, doing it by auto lighting control is easy, but them the system would have to larger then if just used intermittently. The batteries would be sealed gel type with no scheduled maintenance, the LED's and the PV modules would last for decades. For the best info on solar out there go to http://www.homepower.com, their advertisers include specialists in PV based out door lighting. Speaking of which, the sun has come over the mountain, I am going flying! BTW I would not use Harbor Freight junk solar to light my dog house, buy quality its cheaper in the long run.

K.I.S.S. the lights are not for a full blown "FAA approved " strip --- just one for the Ranch strip for use maybe a few times a year.
I've used smudge pots years ago and they do work ---just messy to work with. Some of those construction cones and simple lights
either solar or battery powered will work and fit in the back of 182.On a 2000 ft. strip I'd use 2 red on each end (spaced apart 40 ft. or so) 2 blue near the middle and one yellow every 200' on one side -something like 16-18 lights. You could put them on those plastic traffic cones .Move it easily to next strip if you wanted.

Here's a couple shots of my solar lighting runway system I just took, the first shows it as its just in the process of activating.
The second shows how the system stores away when not needed.
Great air this AM, nice and dense... time to go to work though!

Another thought, this much simpler (K.I.S.S. for sure, this one anyway.)
As one who does not fly at night, I don't know for sure but do you really need (however elaborate or temporary) a row on EACH side? I mean you're just wanting to mark the runway, not really light it. If it was my strip, meaning no strangers dropping in (unlikely with a single row). Wouldn't a single line half the cost/double the marking and as long as YOU know what side of the runway they denote wouldn't they provide adequate visual cues? K.I.S.S. to the max!

Here in MN some operators on private fields or DNR strips just used driveway reflectors. Turn your landing light on and instant lighted strip. (semi lighted anyway

Now that this thread has taken a turn in this direction I have a story to share... Years ago when I was a small child,<G> I lived outside of Miami. WE used to go out to the everglades to go target shooting. One day while driving down one of the kazillion dirt roads that run everywhere we come across a strange sight. About every 200 feet on each side of the road there is a wooden stake, just like surveyers use. To that is a pie tin stapled to it. This went on for 1/2 mile or so... WTF ??? A buddy that was with us riding in another truck caught up to us and gave us the lowdown.... Turns out the dope runners do this for an incoming drop. No GPS back then but supposably they enter a waypoint into the loran for both the ground crew and pilot of the runner plane. The ground crew marks the strip with these in the afternoon and when it gets dark the plane uses them to line up on... KInda clever but I thought back then it was BS.... Fast forward ahead about 10 years and after I got my PPL. I explain to a friend the deal and he had a 2000' grass strip. So we go the local albertsons, buy 50 pie tins, hit the local hardware store and get some stakes. We had 15 bucks invested in this experiment. So, we plant them along his strip and wait till dark.. He had a 172 and I had a Warrior. We both make several passes down that strip and I swear with the landing light on you could see those pie tins on a 2 mile final. Down low and in the flair they were almost too bright to even look at... Pretty damn good idea.

Stol
Old license plates work pretty well also. Especially if bent in the middle about 5 degree's kind of a built in GS
GT

courierguy wrote:Here's a couple shots of my solar lighting runway system I just took, the first shows it as its just in the process of activating.
The second shows how the system stores away when not needed.
Great air this AM, nice and dense... time to go to work though!

Noticed the first picture ---where's the prop ? Looks like the wheel is chocked with a brick.

The picture got cropped, it's there, I was warming it up prior to an hour of hill landings down the ridge from me before heading to work. I gotta laugh, when first reading this thread this morning, I was killing time until the sun popped over the mountain, it may not BE warmer for a while but it LOOKS warmer! The wheel chock is a scrap length of 6x6, regular chocks are no good with the Airstreaks, one of the drawbacks to the Bushwheels:)

Noticed the first picture ---where's the prop ? Looks like the wheel is chocked with a brick.[/quote]

Years ago when I visited a friend that lives in the Boise area, we left his grass strip to meet some family/friends for dinner in Boise. On the way back to the strip in the dark, we were short, short final and I didn't see his strip until the landing lights on the plane lit up the grass strip . Pretty damn good pilot!! No GPS or nothing! He said he just knows exactly where his strip is.

Wow, that makes sense... the reflectors and pie tins have a lot of advantages. It's obviously the cheapest, and obviously nobody would steal a bunch of stapled pie tins or 50 cent road reflectors.

But, these reflective methods do not allow you to see your strip from above as you approach from a few miles away.

What about a hybrid system? Two or four battery/solar powered lights on the ends of the runway, so you cana see it and get lined up on final. Then, when on final, the reflectors would give you a good sight picture of the touchdown zone with no additional electrical power requirements.

This might be the best balance between cost and operational advantages.

Years ago when my Dad would come home in his Super Cub he would come over the house and I would jump in the picup and run down to the end of the strip and shine the head lights down the runway, he would come over the tail lights and touch down in front of me and I would follow him to the corner of the field!! Still works for me some 45 years later.
That is if anyone is home?? If not the license plates do OK.
My to close neighbors have yard lights that happen to line up pretty close to where I need to go. 1st one is at a mile and the next is 1/4 mile to arrival then 30 degrees left and you are on the end of the strip. You just have to make sure you are on the ground at 1/2 way as there are some pesky power lines running across the field.
GT
Plus it helps to just know where it is.

M6RV6 wrote:Years ago when my Dad would come home in his Super Cub he would come over the house and I would jump in the picup and run down to the end of the strip and shine the head lights down the runway, he would come over the tail lights and touch down in front of me and I would follow him to the corner of the field!! Still works for me some 45 years later.
That is if anyone is home?? If not the license plates do OK.
My to close neighbors have yard lights that happen to line up pretty close to where I need to go. 1st one is at a mile and the next is 1/4 mile to arrival then 30 degrees left and you are on the end of the strip. You just have to make sure you are on the ground at 1/2 way as there are some pesky power lines running across the field.
GT
Plus it helps to just know where it is.

Where is Rice Washington ? I may have landed there ---Looks like Wheat fields in background of 195 ? I've landed in a lot of farm fields many years ago around Walla Walla ,Wa.

Why Rice is just North of Gifford!!
Actually I'm on Saints Flats just up the hill from Daisy!!
GT
48-21-43x118-08-27

Just awakening an old thread rather than start a new one. Posted the same on the CPA website and the seems to be lots of people using reflectors for low lighting/night VFR approaches. However the Solar LED game has come on so much I'm wondering if anyone has got a really good quality cost/effective solution to private strip night lighting.

I have one of these http://www.crconsys.com/cr1000.html for a threshold identifier, and then using these guys here for edge markers http://shop.brightportalresources.com/.... However I bet there are better products out there. I am a big believer in getting the threshold identified with a flashing light, and then building the picture from the threshold marker.

There are lots of flashing/strobe LED lights that seem to represent good value now. How would going from steady edge lights to flashing edge lights work out? I would like to try the flashing edge markers in some other colour other than white, as there is lots of white/orange lights contaminating the view on the approach from the local town.

Any 2011 quality idea's??

Irish