On a night street, you see some fireflies come near you with a scary sound. But they have red lights and fly higher than fireflies. You soon realize that it is an aircraft. Keep reading this article to know how to spot a drone at night.
What is a drone?
We are talking about a flying machine near the ground. From low-end to high-end, drones are made of plastic, metal, carbon fiber, and other material construction. It is a vehicle with no pilot inside and has a system to communicate with controllers on the ground.
Drone’s components include wings, cooling system, motor, flight controller, sensors, cameras, etc. The pilot will choose to add more components for testing. Click here for a look at the drone models that currently dominate the top picks in the market.
Drone’s flying purpose
In movies and films, we have watched drones in many actions, they can have missions in military, civil or commercial, or just for fun and recreational activities. And in the near future, when you are in bed, drones will still operate.
We can list some military uses of drones: emergency services, search and rescue, spy, locate enemy’s position, and more.
And in civil or commercial uses, drones are commonly used for purposes of delivery, firefighting, agriculture, farming, mining, advertising, sports events, and so on.
For fun and recreational purposes, drones are used to break a world record with a large number of drones, photography, filming, video production, live-streaming, and others.
Drones have a huge range of applications in our real life. Big companies are improving their functions to be more advanced day after day.
How to spot a drone at night?
1. Spot the lights
Light is essential for a drone. Drones this day can have many colorful lights. Their basic color light is red, green, and white. And for your information, the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) does require anti-collision lights when you fly your “bird” at night or twilight.
Why do drones need a couple of lights? Well, for anti-collision or navigation. A drone is capable of stable flight so its lights are easily spotted. There are two tips to recognize the difference between navigation and anti-collision lights of drones after dark.
First, the navigation lights go with red, green, or white. Instead, the anti-collision lights go with just red or white. Maybe pilots will need additional colors like yellow or others but red, green, white are just the basic colors to start with.
Second, the navigation lights will not blink (just as lights on cars, they will illuminate constantly) while the anti-collision lights will strobe (remember the flash flight from your smartphone when taking pictures at night).
If a drone is missing lights – maybe the old lights are broken or that drone doesn't have the lights, you may consider making a small upgrade for your hobby.
Online stores and shops today will make your choice a perfect combination for dark places and the night sky. Make sure to check the lights fit with different models of your drone.
What is the maximum and minimum level of lights for drones? The FAA just requires that drone’s lights can be seen clearly within a 3-mile distance. On the market, we can see different light settings and systems. They range from below 500 to above 150,000-lumen settings.
You will quickly spot the intense light of a drone in the nighttime outdoors when a film-making team is shooting a breathtaking view of the alien invasion. Or you will see the gentle light of drones in small or low-budget projects.
2. Spot the buzz sounds
The drone’s noise will reveal itself whether in day or night. You can identify a drone by its buzz sounds. It is a strange noise of a bee from a far distance, and a really loud noise when drones move close to you.
Sounds can be not the same since drones come in big and small sizes.
When you stand near a flying drone, you clearly hear the sounds of its rotor or engine. At night, that is a scary, deafening, and annoying sound once a big drone flies just above your head or around your standing area.
For a clear picture of this nightmare, imagine you are sleeping on the bed, and many times, you are woken by a chainsaw sound and the sound makes your pets anxious all night.
What about small drones in the nighttime? Let say a car is parking near or passing by your house. It has a quieter sound. But if a small drone is landing on your backyard, it has a “loitering” sound (or the sound remains on your head for a longer time). Check out the latest reviews at Staaker.com to see what are the best drone products on the market today.
3. Spot the altitude
According to FAA requirements, drones are subject to “400 feet down to the ground” rule. To be honest, if the drones don’t turn on their lights, we can’t easily see them at night from a high altitude.
So the only advantage left we have is its sounds. Suppose that the pilot stands above a high building, during the night, and flies his drone up another 400 feet more (this is possible but we should follow the “400 feet down to the ground” rule of FAA for safeties), we may don’t have a chance to know the drone’s existence.
Final words
More drones will appear in the coming years. They are advanced technology and will give us a lot of hands in challenging tasks. We should be able to identify them in the daytime or at night. Above are small tips to notice a drone when we are in dark places.