landing/taxi lights

Anyone replace their Vans 75 watt bulbs with the Flyleds replacement? Looking for ant pireps and/or other suggestions.

I did replace my 50 watt Duckworh bulbs with 200 watt bulbs and am very happy with them.

Someday, when LED's become reasonably priced, I will replace them but for now, you can't beat $5 every five or six years.

N941WR said:

U did replace my 50 watt Duckworh bulbs with 200 watt bulbs and am very happy with them.

Someday, when LED's become reasonably priced, I will replace them but for now, you can't beat $5 every five or six years.

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Wow! 200w is 14amps or so. Hope you've got 10 or 12gage wire out to them. The biggest ones I've seen for the Duckworks halogen were 120w. I had the 50w then the 75w and finally the 100w halogens in our 6A and the last two were pretty good. Can't answer about the FlyLeds lights, but I am very satisfied with their strobe and position lights. Running BD squadron pros in my 6 and they are pretty bright, if a little sensitive to aiming. If I hit the lottery, I'll go to the the 9500lumen XL80s.

Ed Holyoke

I bought a set at Oshkosh but haven?t installed them. I expect them to really outshine the duck works 50w and interested to see how good the built in taxi led works.

Bicyclops said:

Wow! 200w is 14amps or so. Hope you've got 10 or 12gage wire out to them. The biggest ones I've seen for the Duckworks halogen were 120w. I had the 50w then the 75w and finally the 100w halogens in our 6A and the last two were pretty good. Can't answer about the FlyLeds lights, but I am very satisfied with their strobe and position lights. Running BD squadron pros in my 6 and they are pretty bright, if a little sensitive to aiming. If I hit the lottery, I'll go to the the 9500lumen XL80s.

Ed Holyoke

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14 AWG is all that is required for the short wire runs in our wings. Since I'm a taildragger, each light is on its own breaker-switch; left is taxi and right is landing.

At 400 to 500 feet the threshold is bathed in light. I was very surprised and impressed.

N941WR said:

14 AWG is all that is required for the short wire runs in our wings. Since I'm a taildragger, each light is on its own breaker-switch; left is taxi and right is landing.

At 400 to 500 feet the threshold is bathed in light. I was very surprised and impressed.

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Maybe I misunderstood. Do you actually have 200w bulbs or 2 - 100w bulbs?

With the longer RV-9 wing and getting the wire to the panel, I figure 15' of wire, possibly more. 100w at 14v would be something over 7amps. The wire size chart from AC43.13 shows that a 14awg wire would be good for somewhere north of 20' - all good so far. 200w is 14.3amps. The 15A line on the chart crosses 15' about 3/4 of the way from 14awg to 12awg. You always round up using this chart, so if it really is 200w the wire is undersized. Probably not enough to burn up, but it will have more voltage drop and run warmer than industry standard. In an enclosed conduit with other wires, they would be warmer too.

Ed Holyoke

I bought FLYLEDS for RV9 at OSH. I have them built and quick tested. Next step is put it all together and full functional test before installing during the bad weather months.

Should be a nice easy replacement to the Wing tips.

Installed last week. Nice!!

Bought these at OSH and just installed them last week. MUCH nicer than the halogen bulbs. Just from an observation viewpoint, they’re at least 4 times as bright with a whiter light. A set of Vans 2 halogens (taxi or landing light pair) had a 14 amp draw. A set of FlyLED’s draws 2 amps. After installing the nutplates on the outer matched holes these fit exactly into the Vans wingtip light kit with the same hardware. You don’t need very much of the included thermal glue. The first one I put together had a bit too much but it squeezes right out. Just a bit messy. Another plus is the lack of background noise. With the halogens there was a slight background buzz in the headset, not much, but noticeable. With the FlyLED’s, no noise whatsoever.

how many

Did you put two bulbs in each wingtip?

Bicyclops said:

Maybe I misunderstood. Do you actually have 200w bulbs or 2 - 100w bulbs?

With the longer RV-9 wing and getting the wire to the panel, I figure 15' of wire, possibly more. 100w at 14v would be something over 7amps. The wire size chart from AC43.13 shows that a 14awg wire would be good for somewhere north of 20' - all good so far. 200w is 14.3amps. The 15A line on the chart crosses 15' about 3/4 of the way from 14awg to 12awg. You always round up using this chart, so if it really is 200w the wire is undersized. Probably not enough to burn up, but it will have more voltage drop and run warmer than industry standard. In an enclosed conduit with other wires, they would be warmer too.

Ed Holyoke

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Two 100w bulbs, one in each wing, each on a different circuit. Our wire runs are not that long and my lights are in the leading edges, not the wingtips, which helps.

I installed the Flyleds almost two years ago. My old strobes and nav lights were power hungry and if I set at idle power and flipped landing lights on, the alt breaker would trip. I saw another thread on here and recalled seeing Paul's Flyleds mentioned. After a few emails for a couple questions, I had these things sitting in front of me on the kitchen table. I was excited! They are very fun to put together. I had never done any messing around with circuit boards. Flyleds has done a GREAT job eliminating any potential unknowns and their instructions are easy to understand and follow.

These nav/strobes are super bright. The first time you power yours up... don't do what I did... having it right in front of you. If you do, you'll see spots for awhile!!! I don't recall the numbers off the top of my head but the Flyleds draw very little power. Now I can sit at idle power and have everything on with no problems. Another benefit was getting rid of the 2 pound strobe box sitting behind the bulkhead. The entire weight of the flyled installed is ounces! My biggest concern was radio noise. Wasted anxiety... there is ZERO noise with the flyleds!

I met Mr. Paul McVitty at Oshkosh this year. Easy to tell he is committed to a superior product at a great price and fantastic customer service. I see he's even added the LED landing lights. If I was building now... it's a no brainer, this is the way to go.

Look at that picture of the video on his homepage. The taillight you see looks like a huge blast of light at the tail. All of that light is coming from an LED that is about the size on a pencil eraser.

On a funny note. With my old nav lights, I felt like they were no brighter than someone sitting out on the wing tips smoking a cigarette. These's Flyleds can't be beat! Can you tell I like them! From a safety standpoint these lights dramatically increasing your chances of being seen!

Here's my recommendation....... Buy them, build them, fly them.

I am in no way affiliated with Flyleds. I just love the product!