Ultimate Night Flying

[Pipemajor]

One of the local groups had a few hours booked for indoor late night flying at a large domed sports complex. I took my brand new Night Vapor. I have a pair of the regular Vapors and they were a kick.

The Night Vapor has a modular landing gear which you can pop out the struts and further reduce weight. The other flyers were amazed by the slow speed I was able to obtain.

The NV's seven LEDs were awesome and really help with orientation when flying to the further corners of the dome.

Just before our scheduled ending time, someone hit a switch and every light in the building went out. Total blackness. I could hear the 3D helis going in but here I was cheerfully floating around with a brightly lit Night Vapor.

We were in the middle of the 3 fields and the soccer team on the far end decided to head for the exit doors (emergency exit signs were still on). Between them and the doors was me, standing in the middle of a completely dark field. I heard several move past me and feared I was about to get bowled over. Then, I remember I have a JR 9503 radio so hit the selector button and lit my display backlight. I'm sure that was enough to illuminate my face.

Don't know if I can ever duplicate the total darkness again. Outdoors at night is never completely black.

If any of you decide to try it, a backlit transmitter and an LED-equipped Night Vapor is the ticket! I was getting 10 minute flights on the stock battery and must have put in 6 flights that night. Most fun I've had in years.