Quote Originally Posted by CarlOrton View Post
C'mon, Ron, put a bit of a challenge to it! Set up an IR emitter / detector pair on each side of the cockpit. If you get out and the beam completes, then set off an alarm. Small, simple, and relatively cheap. Plus it gives you something to talk about at fly-ins!
Actually, this is the way my mind originally turned. Thinking I could put a emitter/detector pair on one side, and a white surface on the other as a reflector. Got a laser LED element floating around here somewhere.....

Have to admit, I have a Rube Goldberg tinge that wants something not completely simple.

The airplane HAS a strobe, but it hasn't been hooked up for about 10 years. Ran out of panel space/enthusiasm for switches/fuses when I re-did the electrical system. Ditto the nav lights. Dates to the building of the aircraft ~40 years ago. Hardware-store wire used; not too fired up sending strobe pulses ~10 feet through it.

The strobe itself is mounted to a big shaped balsa block on the vertical stabilizer...totally ruins the lines of the tail. I've temporarily removed it, in the past, to mount a video camera instead.


I tend to cover it in shame, on the ground....

Ron "Good place to keep the formal flying helmet" Wanttaja