VLOS at Night vs. During the Day

[ScottTX]

Does VLOS at night mean the maximum distance at which you can see the strobe and/or bottom lights? In my experience, this could exceed the distance at which you could see the same drone during the day.

 

[AlanL]

Yes strobes enhance visibility. There are folks on here who use strobes mounted on the motor arms to enhance daylight VLOS for exactly that reason.

 

[MA2 317]

Yes, but...you must know the orientation of the aircraft, even during the day, so you know which way to fly when needed should you lose your screen telemetry for some reason.

I have four strobes mounted on my MA2 and I can tell the orientation at night easily with the colored strobes.

Two whites on the rear, one red and green on each of the front arms.

I use them during the day as well.

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[ScottTX]

MA2 317" data-source="post: 1497770" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch">

Yes, but...you must know the orientation of the aircraft, even during the day, so you know which way to fly when needed should you lose your screen telemetry for some reason.

I have four strobes mounted on my MA2 and I can tell the orientation at night easily with the colored strobes.

Two whites on the rear, one red and green on each of the front arms.

I use them during the day as well.

.

"Yes, but...you must know the orientation of the aircraft, even during the day, so you know which to fly when needed should you lose your screen telemetry for some reason."

So this means at night, you need to be able to tell the orientation of the drone visually, without the aid of the screen telemetry. (That was going to be my next question)

 

[MA2 317]

So this means at night, you need to be able to tell the orientation of the drone visually, without the aid of the screen telemetry. (That was going to be my next question)

Yes.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Does VLOS at night mean the maximum distance at which you can see the strobe and/or bottom lights? In my experience, this could exceed the distance at which you could see the same drone during the day.

I feel strongly no.
The strobes and 3 miles visibility thing is to do with the manned aircraft being able to see your drone at a reasonable distance, not you seeing your drone or being able to understand it's orientation.
Further thoughts on the spirit of VLOS below . . .

MA2 317" data-source="post: 1497770" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch">

Yes, but...you must know the orientation of the aircraft, even during the day, so you know which way to fly when needed should you lose your screen telemetry for some reason.

Orientation and telemetry info is only part of flying VLOS.
I know from experience during daylight hours, once the drone with strobes is more than X metres / feet away, all strobes seem to have the same melded colour, and 'merge' somewhat together so it just looks like one strobe.

Besides this, the REALLY important thing regarding VLOS is being overlooked.
The ability to know what's happening in the airspace around the drone, situational awareness.
You simply have none if you can't hear an aircraft when further away, if you hear a heli or small plane, you can't easily pick where it is, where it's heading, in relation to your drone, you can't know what evasive action might be needed (if any).

 

[MA2 317]

The ability to know what's happening in the airspace around the drone, situational awareness.
You simply have none if you can't hear an aircraft when further away,

I don't fly any further away while using the strobes and my situational awareness is 100% both day and night.

Before flying at night at a new spot, I'll do some recon during the day to make note of power lines and other obstacles that I may not see at night.

I'm not a long distance flyer and don't want to drive, walk or hike to find my aircraft because I flew it BVLOS if something happens.

The aircraft in my G airspace are safe.


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[MAvic_South_Oz]

MA2 317" data-source="post: 1497924" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch">

I don't fly any further away while using the strobes and my situational awareness is 100% both day and night.

Before flying at night at a new spot, I'll do some recon during the day to make note of power lines and other obstacles that I may not see at night.

That's the way to use strobes, day or night.
I was pretty sure you and most of the experienced pilots here would do just this.

The 2 points you made above are very important.
A daylight recce is very advisable, so one can know where all the obstacles are that might be of concern, also pick out some good landing spots and know what one can do when the 'lights are out'.
Doing the planned flight in daylight is even better if time permits, note mentally all the safe altitudes over powerlines, tall trees and other objects.

 

[ScottTX]

This has been a great discussion. It's one thing to agree that much of the videos that we see on YouTube etc. are being flown with the drone "way beyond" VLOS, but a discussion about what really reflects actual VLOS is a good one.

 

[DARKSeifer]

If you are in Europe, VLOS is limited to 500m range anyway. At the end of the day, no one is flying VLOS, but as long as you limit the drone to 500m nobody can prove the contrary.

If in US there's no range hard cap to VLOS then of course, there's more room to play.

Real VLOS when flying alone for me is around 100m for the Mini 2 and about 200m or so on the M3. Past that, if you are focusing on the screen you won't be able to find it in the air again, at least not instantly, you'll have to spend some time scanning the air till you find it. And of course, any obstruction means you are not VLOS anymore.

At night, a Mini2 green flash can be seen easily up to 500m or 700m and Mavic 3, Air2S, etc at more than 2Km.

IMO we should stop pretending to fly VLOS on forums and accept once for all that we all fly BVLOS most of time unless we are flying close to obstacles, interiors and things that require VLOS and the drone to be at close range.

 

[Yaros]

If you are in Europe, VLOS is limited to 500m range anyway.

What do you mean? I can see my drone from further away than 500m. My VLOS isn't limited by 500m.

 

[maggior]

If you are in Europe, VLOS is limited to 500m range anyway. At the end of the day, no one is flying VLOS, but as long as you limit the drone to 500m nobody can prove the contrary.

When I first got my Mavic Air 2, I did an experiment to see how far I could fly it and still see it. 500m was the far limit. I could have gone a little more, but not comfortably. Nighttime with my lights it is far easier to see at that distance and I can tell my orientation with how I mounted my lights. Red means I'm flying away from me, green means toward me. Scoping out a flying location during the day is essential for me. I never fly at night in an area I've never flown during the day.

 

[Nebogipfel]

How Far Can I Legally Fly My Drone and Maintain VLOS? - Ask Steve - Public Safety Flight

Here is a question I get on a regular basis. Question: How far can we fly our drone at the incident scenes and how far beyond the line of sight can we go? Answer: You would think there would be a simple answer to this question. There actually is but the facts get clouded with ... Read more

psflight.org

 

[Dmcvey]

Night flight distances would be no higher than 40 feet or further than 65 feet from the VO, even with strobes on during flight.

Strobe is for other aircraft to see you, not for you to see your drone

 

[dronerdave]

Night flight distances would be no higher than 40 feet or further than 65 feet from the VO, even with strobes on during flight.

Strobe is for other aircraft to see you, not for you to see your drone

Can you supply the FAA (rec/107) rule that states that?

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Strobe is for other aircraft to see you, not for you to see your drone

I'm a bit advocate of that line of thought.
You need to have situational awareness of approaching aircraft to your location, which of course should include the drones location, to be able to respond to anything manned you become aware of.

The distances not so much in agreement, even for night . . . I know from the other thread where you got that, and it's not an official FAA or other airspace authority rule.
Mind you, we can't fly recreational at all at night here, think RePL (part 107 equivalent) needs special approval.

 

[dronerdave]

I don't know if the FAA has specified the night time operation rules in regard to strobes vs distance other than the visibility stats. Unless they have added new verbage, it seems more that their idea is a wide swath and vague... similar to keeping 100% eye contact on the RC aircraft.
I think one question is how much more of a risk is flying at night compared to daylight hours. Orientation can be a factor in regard to not being able to see any surface features such as trees, power lines, the-ground. I can argue I might have the same issues during the day though.

When thinking of keeping night time orientation, I'm not sure how to take that. Even during the daytime hours it's a factor. Keeping orientation to me is if your drone looses all it's ability to self hover or fly (autonomously), it better be close enough that you can manually fly it (without telemetry or video feed) and land safely. That is really close for a small RC aircraft, maybe a few hundred feet at most in full sun. Long distance drone flight relies heavily on the drones self flight abilities. But autonomous or fly by wire drones have a very good record for safe flight which has been proven over time. Flight errors have always been part of RC aircraft flight and is a given. Night flight just seems more dangerous. The FAA probably will look at the acceptable night time flight risk, and orientation at night is surely a factor. On the other hand a drone at night with the correct strobes is generally more visible than a drone in daylight hours to the drone operator and manned aircraft pilots.

If I'm flying a multi-rotor a thousand feet away during daylight hours, I lose so much depth perception that if it were not for my telemetry, I actually wouldn't know if I'm 2000 or 1500 feet out. AGL without telemetry is a best guess. The term keeping situational awareness is vague. I'd say you should always maintain situational awareness to the best of your ability, provided it's within reason while not using it as an excuse to fly on the edge of being out of compliance. But in the end, you are simply responsible for your flight actions... no matter where you are at.
I often hear "oh you'll hear the aircraft coming" but if you've flown off active airports like have, you'd know that isn't always true. Most clubs who fly frequently off active airports usually have rules dealing with interactions regarding incoming full sized aircraft. It's not uncommon to look down a runway as you make your RC approach and see a plane coming in to land. Never saw or heard em coming.

In a few of the close calls I've had with manned aircraft, all have been fairly close to my home point as I rarely fly past a few thousand feet. One incident was flying close to rolling hills. I was way too far out IMO about 3500' @ around 150 AGL with unobstructed views to the hills beyond. All of a sudden a crop duster came over the back side of the hill. At that distance I didn't know if he passed by my drone by inches or hundreds of feet. I don't have the ability to say he's at 3300 hundred feet at 128 foot from the surface. Was I in violation because in an instant an aircraft suddenly appeared? Was there an issue with orientation or situational awareness? Another time I was about 500-1000 feet from home point over a river at about 150 AGL. A fixed wing aircraft was flying up the river completely out of my sight when all of a sudden there he was & flew past my drone. Never heard him coming. But the worst event was when I was flying over a river about 150(feet) away from where I was standing at around 50' AGL when a guy in a piper cub came off the lake, out of the sun at about 50 feet and (from what it appeared to me) passed by only a few feet. By the time I heard and saw him, it didn't give me enough time to react where I felt safe that my actions to avoid him were reasonable. It was one of the few time I was shaking when landing my drone. In each of these incidents the only thing that would have made much of a difference is if I wasn't there, or if the real pilot would have seen my drone and took action. That's questionable during daylight even if I had my 4 strobes flashing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm quite a bit more conservative when flying at night and it does seem logical that night operations should be a bit more regulated. I'm more worried about terrain bringing my drone down and the outcome of it crashing to earth. But is night flight really that different? Recreational night flying is more, or has been related to fixed wing RC aircraft flight at night. If it wasn't for the typical club recreational night flying, I'd bet there would be no allowance for rec night time operation for drones at all. Maybe it should be. I feel there is a difference between night time rec operations as opposed to 107 operations at night which is a different subject. But I wouldn't be surprised if the FAA said all recreational night flights must be conducted at a FRIA zone. If things change it will probably be due to risk assessment and how prohibiting night time recreational flying effects rec RC pilots.
I just have issues with using the thought that requiring visual sight of my drone (not my strobes) at night to see and avoid manned aircraft is much different than the day when the drone is a dot in the sky at 1000 feet away.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

I find strobes of any colour, all look similar when they get X distance away, during daylight that is because we aren't allowed night flying here under recreationally rules.

This also applies to separation of strobes, with 3 visible at a certain distance, it just looks like one strobe.

Day time reccon, and staying close is safest for night flying I'd imagine, also having a good ground area unilluminated so you can see it ok, although a good pilot can fly by telemetry anyway.