As part of my build I'd like to incorporate some basic LEDs to aid in learning to fly and also for the cool factor.

Is there any "convention" or common colour layout that is used?  I tried Googling this up but in general just come up with either racing regulations which are about differentiating drones in a race or lots of how-to vids on sticking LEDs to a drone.

My sort of nerdy thought was to sort of mimic the lighting used by "real" aircraft.

   

Naturally the smart-**** in me thinks using the stick-on-LED strip to make a giant arrow pointing to the front would be more effective

Would I be better off matching the LED colour/orientation to a friends RTF to reduce confusion?

Depending on the size of your quad LEDS are pretty much useless for LOS flying, especially on bright sunny days as you can hardly see them.

But, if you really want them stick a set of red ones on the back of the quad. and if for LOS flying, make sure they angle down a little so you can see them better.

I went through the whole "they look cool" phase and in the end didn't bother anymore. LEDS really do come into play when flying in low light areas like underground carparks or at night (but of course legally we cannot fly at night).

In hindsight - unless I break out some of my uber (technical term) bright/high output ones you're spot on. Not bright enough. Might just stick a simple white strip on the front and use coloured heat shrink when mounting the ESCs instead.