In Wayne, Nebraska, whipping winds are notorious during the day – something you obviously don’t want to deal with when racing backcountry airplanes side-by-side, only feet off the ground at speeds hovering around 90 mph.
That’s the issue the team from Wayne America Fly-In 2023 was up against when they decided to bring together STOL Drag and National STOL for some epic airplane drag racing back in May.
If you’re not familiar with this wild – and insanely cool – style of racing, STOL stands for “short take-off and landing”. It involves two airplanes racing side-by-side over a distance of roughly 2,000 feet.
So, what do you to combat the winds? Well, you race in the evening, when conditions are much calmer.
“When we started looking into doing it in the evening, the big question was how do we light it?,” said Travis Meyer, an event organizer and chairman of the Wayne Airport Authority.
Enter, Guardian Angel.
Light Up the Runway
Meyer knew he needed highly visible and reliable devices When he discovered Guardian Angel – and saw how they can easily connect to cones using a magnetic mount – he quickly realized he had found an answer to their needs.
“We considered big construction lights but those can blind pilots,” Meyer said. “Then we looked at sidewalk solar lights but they’re not bright and reliable enough.”
Wayne America organizers used a combination of solid white, blue and red-colored Guardian Angel Elite Series devices to light the runways, spacing them roughly every 70 feet. In total, about 180 devices were placed along the runways and across the start and finish lines to help aviators navigate the course safely.
The lights were bright enough to guide pilots safely and given the color options and flash patterns (and the fact that there isn’t a top light beaming light into the air) the GA devices didn’t produce unwanted glare.
All the pilots really liked them,” Meyer said, “because they lit the course well, the blinking stood out and the color patterns worked well for aviation.”
The use of GA devices for this event was approved by the FAA.
