Hehe. "Roger that" Ron. We all have to be at least a little crazy, so right there with ya on that. Regarding directivity - really good point. Also gives rise to the fact that flying down a runway line will only allow one side of a wings lights to be potentially seen by "the crowd." To see both sides would require a bit of side slip with the leeward wing slightly high for a good effect. And of course the directionality also comes into play as you stated. For that I see a small servo connected to a bracket that connects all the light mounts that will allow you slant the lights as much as necessary to expose as much of the light as possible to the on-lookers. My brain is working overtime trying to come up with a good mounting solution for all that. I think it is totally do-able though.

Also thanks for the heads up on the IC 558. I knew about the 555 but have not had a chance to play with either of them yet. That said, I have tried out several of the lights I received from SuperbriteLEDs, as well as the strobe controller, and I have to say I really like the effect I get from one of them above all the others. It is their part number WLED-RLX, which is a 1 watt non-polarized wedge mount Red LED. I'll have to rig it up for some outside tests, but inside it just about blinds the heck out of ya-and that from using just a 9 volt battery. The strobe effect is also pretty cool, and would pass for machine flashes pretty nicely I think. I'll look into the 558 chip and use your schematic and see what happens. I'll grab some pics and video and post those as well.