Introduction: Paper Airplane Runway Lighting System

Cheap holiday lights line a foam insulation board to create a realistic runway for night time paper airplane flights. The video below shows controllable slope soaring approaches for landing with the indoor paper airplane walkalong glider:


Step 1: Assemble Foamboard, Duct Tape and Holiday Lights

The foam board is of the type available at home improvement stores. The holiday lights are incandescent with bulbs which can be removed. One white and one colored strand were used, exchanging the white bulbs for green or red bulbs from the colored strand.


Step 2: Assembly

Attach the holiday lights to the foam board with duct tape, working your way first clock wise from one corner to the center of the approach end of the runway. Next swap the last 9 lights of the departure end of the runway for red bulbs from the colored strand and work your way counter clock wise around back to the center line of the approach end of the runway. Tape excess lights as shown in the diagram to form a runway center line for a displaced threshold.

Step 3: Layout

Test the lights by plugging them in.  Half my lights wouldn't come on. One of the lights which had been swapped had a miss aligned wire which when properly positioned to meet the contact in the socket completed the circuit.

Homemade Holidays Contest

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Homemade Holidays Contest