Good topic
When taxiing at night, I always plan to leave my strobes turned off until I take the runway so I don't blind other pilots or line guys. I have a small Whelen strobe head with a red lens (looks like
this) that I'm hoping to put somewhere on my airplane, to serve the same purpose as a red flashing beacon but in a more streamlined way. I have a separate, low-energy strobe power supply from an ultralight that will flash the red light less brightly than my actual wingtip/tail strobes.
Putting the red strobe on top of the fin seems like it would be troublesome, since it would shine directly onto the cockpit and wings - distracting. For a while I was looking at belly locations, but then I started thinking about putting it on top of the aft fuselage, between F-708 and F-709. From what I've been able to measure, that location would not shine into the cockpit, and the fuselage would block most of the light from hitting the wings. I might get a little light on the wingtips and prop, but I could make a little artistically-shaped light baffle for it. To a person standing on the ramp or walking around the airplane, the aft fuselage light location is visible from all angles except for when standing directly in front of the propeller... and hopefully if that's where they're standing, I will see them through the windshield!
Of course I might leave it in the box after all, but it's fun to think about this stuff. That's probably why I'm still building and not flying. Oh well.
mcb