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Landing Light Question

Tankerpilot75

Tankerpilot75

Well Known Member
I commented on another landing light thread earlier this week about not being able to see the runway until I was almost on the runway doing my first night currency landings in an RV7A I bought a year and a half ago. The RV has wing tip halogen lights and just doesn't throw enough forward light out for safe nighttime landings.

In talking to a gentleman who manufactures landing light kits, he said an LED light kit he sells will give out at least three times the light of the halogen light but because my lights are located in the wing tips I will never have half the light of a wing mounted light. I'm a little weary about cutting into the leading edge of the wing to mount the kit he sells (my plane has a nice paint job and I do not trust my aluminum working skills).

My question: Has anyone mounted an LED light on the top of the nose gear just below the engine cowling (similar to a Bonanza mounted landing light)? It seems to me that would be a great place to mount an LED landing/taxi light.

Your thoughts and comments would be appreciated.
 
They make some pretty small LED lights now that are very powerful. I have a flashlight I can get a tan from. If you somehow incorporated it into the leg faring or maybe bottom of the cowl, you probably could do it. In the end, I think it would be a bigger job than cutting into your wing. I say that without experience cutting into my wings - they are pre cut for me.

When I built my wings, I was going to use the duckworth old style lights and installed the mounts for them. I bought the AeroLeds and installed them slightly modifying the mounts moving the light forward a couple inches. I am not flying yet, but they throw out a bunch of light, but I think I can do better. I am going to rebuild the mounts to move the LED lights closer to the wing lens. It is a fiddly job, but not that bad.

If there is a builder near you, have them look at what you have and maybe help you out. I really believe someone who knows what they are doing could do it without damage to the paint. You have the wiring already so it would just be a cut and mounting hardware.

Good luck on it.
Thanks for being a Veteran.
 
I have seen at least one plane with a landing light/lens built into the engine cowling, similar to a Single engine Cessna.
I'd like to suggest you try some night landings with no landing light. Take along a cfi or safety pilot if you have doubts. I'm assuming we're talking about a runway with lights. Pilots sometimes make the mistake of looking at the runway where their lights are illuminating it, instead of looking down the runway/runway lights the same as you would do in the day.
 
cowl light

in a post I saw that aerosport products had a cowl light for the rv-10 but on their web site I cannot find it listed as a product they sell does anyone know if this is still an option? I am with the original post of wanting an easier place to place the lights but expect to do leading edge lights
 
An alternative place would be in the wing root area and you will have less issues with removing wheel pants and having to disconnect wire or not and perhaps more room to play with. The down side to that is that you are running hot wire and electric components next to your tank. You also need to make sure the beam is not in your prop which is not hard to do.

I had Halogen lights which were a joke for night landing. I changed them and used good quality (morimoto HID) with great success and now have them for sell as I have gone to LED. These draw much less power and the brightness is simply not comparable to the older halogen lights.

Here is the projected HID lights.

DSC_6142 by bavafa1, on Flickr
 
Tankerpilot75 said:
--- snip ---

In talking to a gentleman who manufactures landing light kits, he said an LED light kit he sells will give out at least three times the light of the halogen light but because my lights are located in the wing tips I will never have half the light of a wing mounted light. I'm a little weary about cutting into the leading edge of the wing to mount the kit he sells (my plane has a nice paint job and I do not trust my aluminum working skills).

--- snip ---
Click to expand...

My suggestion would be to find someone else to take advice from and do business with.

Ask this question: How does movement of a light 1-foot inboard create more light? The amount of light will not change unless something is blocking it. Light is measured in lumens or candlepower and there is also a beam pattern that can change your perceived brightness.

My landing lights have been in the wingtips for the entire 19+ years my RV-6 has been flying.
 
Lots of options!!

Cutting a hole in the wing does not sound like a highly skilled job. A nibbler, file and sandpaper can yield only an exposed edge without any paint damage. With a little care, you can do it with a few tools. Drill, hole saws, file, nibbler, sandpaper, pop rivet tool etc. Look at the Whelen kit instructions for a preview.

For tip lights BAJA Leds have been used by many, quiet, powerful and light weight. Here is a thread with more details.

I got mine at Rocky Mountain ATV.

You can check out Whelen leading edge kits too. A little more pricey, but excellent products.
 
BillL said:
Cutting a hole in the wing does not sound like a highly skilled job. A nibbler, file and sandpaper can yield only an exposed edge without any paint damage. With a little care, you can do it with a few tools. Drill, hole saws, file, nibbler, sandpaper, pop rivet tool etc. Look at the Whelen kit instructions for a preview.

For tip lights BAJA Leds have been used by many, quiet, powerful and light weight. Here is a thread with more details.

I got mine at Rocky Mountain ATV.

You can check out Whelen leading edge kits too. A little more pricey, but excellent products.
Click to expand...

The issue with retrofitting is (in part) the fasteners that go through the wing skin. If all you had to do was cut the opening, you could trim that out with a 1/8" "ring" of black or grey paint around the opening. But even if you do that, you're stuck with dimpling 6-8 holes and inserting fasteners through the holes. If you dimpled for #6 screws (in stead of a mixture of rivets and screws), the screws might hide the paint damage from the dimple process.
 
My -7's used Duckworks. The left was the cheaper low wattage halogen primarily for illuminating the taxiway close in front of me. (It was pitched sharply down to compensate for sitting nose up.) Right was a 100W halogen, which in the current ride is now a HID. Huge difference. The HID throws a focused beam down the runway a goodly distance, enough to illuminate the threshold and see potential obstacles with enough warning to avoid them. But better yet, the current ride has Aeroleds Aerosun Vx in each tip along with the Duckworks. Now it's an IMAX presentation. The leds don't throw as great a distance as the focused HID, but it's a lot of lumens and the amount of peripheral lighting seems hemispherical, allowing great depth perception and fills in all the black holes.

As Gary pointed out, it's the light, not the position that makes the difference. Bananas have the light on the nose wheel for pointing it in the direction the nose is turning.

BTW, on the Duckworks, I cut the top edge almost an inch further back than the template. Doing so blinkers the lens less.

John Siebold
 
Bavaria & RV7ator: HID light in wing tip?

Do I understand correctly that I can replace the halogen bulbs in the wing tips with HID bulbs? If so what bulbs would you recommend and where can I find them. I would like to try the HID approach in my wing tips (less cost) before spending the $ for LED's although if LED's are far better then maybe I could try one HID in the landing light position and one LED in the taxi light position.

Your thoughts?
 
Tankerpilot75 said:
Do I understand correctly that I can replace the halogen bulbs in the wing tips with HID bulbs? If so what bulbs would you recommend and where can I find them. I would like to try the HID approach in my wing tips (less cost) before spending the $ for LED's although if LED's are far better then maybe I could try one HID in the landing light position and one LED in the taxi light position.

Your thoughts?
Click to expand...

HID bulbs generally have a ballast. Also, they have higher in-rush current than halogens or LED's. The other thing I've experienced with HID's is that they are hot (or their beam is hot). The ones I've got in my wing have clouded the Plexiglas lens in their path. I'd be very concerned about the heat in the small space in the wingtip.

I'd go LED if you can find an appropriate product. If you can find something from Rigid that'll fit, you'll probably be happy.
 
Team AeroDynamix LED light kit

I went ahead and purchased two Whelen LED light kits ($155 each) from Team AeroDynamix and installed one light to compare it's output to my existing halogen wing tip light. The difference is amazing!

The kit instructions are straight forward with everything needed for the conversion included. However I did encounter difficulties in fitting the new LED light into the wing tip location due to the much larger size of the LED light. Had to remove the fiberglass wing tip to gain sufficient access to the wing tip area where the new light goes. One thing I did that was not mentioned in the instructions was to reuse the front aluminum plate of my old halogen light and just enlarge the whole for the light beam. This gives a more sure area for the light assembly than just a fiberglass base mentioned in the instructions.

Of course every improvement comes with unforeseen problems. I unfortunately dropped the lens of my Whelen position/strobe light assembly and it fractured into a bunch of pieces. Now I'm looking for a replacement wing tip green position light lens. Does anyone know where to find these? The position lights I now see posted on the Whelen website are all LED and mine is the old style regular bulb style light. To add to this challenge I do not know the model number of my current Whelen position/strobe light assembly since I was not the builder. I think the position/strobe light assembly was one originally sold by Van's.
 
Sorry to hear that. I've done that myself (broken the lenses) and so now I place the garbage can with a towel over it everytime I work on the nav lights so it catches anything that falls.

Here is the part number for you:

W1284-G Spruce p/n 11-03206

Vic
 
Thank you Vic

I appreciate the information. Spruce does "love" these lenses. At a replacement cost of $47.85 plus shipping I'm definitely going to be more careful with the left side. Ouch!
 
Thank you Whelen

Right before Christmas I called Whelen about my broken position light lens. They graciously mailed me a replacement lens at no charge. Now that's a real Christmas present!
 
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