Freefly unveils 300,000-lumen drone lighting system for night operations
Freefly Systems has opened preorders for the Flying Sun 1000, a heavy-duty drone lighting package built to flood large areas with 300,000 lumens after dark.
The system is based on the company’s Alta X heavy-lift quadcopter. The aircraft carries four lighting panels mounted under its propeller arms, with 72 LEDs on each panel for a total of 288 downward-facing lights. Freefly says the Alta X uses vibration-damping propellers that fold when not in use and can lift payloads of up to 15 kg. In standard, non-lighting roles, the drone’s dual 16-Ah lithium battery packs deliver a claimed 20 to 50 minutes of flight time, depending on payload. In the Flying Sun 1000 configuration, the focus shifts from transport to illumination for construction sites, security work, search-and-rescue missions, emergency response, and film and television production.
Light coverage depends heavily on altitude. Freefly says the system projects a 60-degree beam, meaning the illuminated footprint widens as the drone climbs, while brightness drops. At 316 ft, or 96 m, the lit area reaches 137,000 square feet, or 12,728 square meters, at an intensity of 1 foot-candle. At 100 ft, or 30.5 m, the footprint shrinks to 14,000 square feet, or 1,301 square meters, but intensity rises to 10 foot-candles. Because 288 LEDs require substantial power, the package includes a reeled cable that can feed electricity from an electric vehicle, a portable generator, or another external source for continuous operation. If external power is not available, the system can also run only on the drone’s onboard batteries for roughly five to 10 minutes.
Freefly says the full setup can be deployed by one person in a few minutes. The Flying Sun 1000 is available now for preorder and is scheduled to ship in June at a price of $59,995. A lower-spec Flying Sun 500 is also offered for $49,995. The pricing and design make clear that the system is aimed at commercial users and government agencies that need mobile, rapidly deployed lighting in places where fixed towers or vehicle-mounted floodlights are too slow, too limited, or impossible to position.