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landing-taxi lights

S

simatos

Well Known Member
Was wondering which lights folks are currently installing for landing and taxi. I know the LED systems have come into favour big time. Can these new LED ones run cool enuf to put into the wingtips? Looking forward to any comments and advice
Cheers G
 
Following Mike's lead, I purchased a pair of the Baja Squadron 4300 lumen "Pro" lights with spot beams. Holy **** are they ever bright! Our airplane hasn't flown yet but I have done testing on our rural gravel road and on our local airport's runway. This is a somewhat rural airport with zero night lighting. When the runway lights are off, there are no lights to be seen, other than the rotating beacon.

In the testing at home, our power poles are 100 yards apart. I have no trouble seeing with sufficient detail to make out an animal four poles away. The two lights completely fill the 66' wide road right of way. Both sides of the road are completely treed so from this test I wasn't able to determine how much wider the beam might have been at 400 yards.

At the airport I powered the lights from a small battery and pointed them up the runway to the button from the taxiway intersection, about 400 feet. The two lights completely illuminated the runway at that distance - it was like daylight. I turned around and faced down the runway and had no trouble seeing the runway, it's markings, the transition from faded grey asphalt to gravel along the edge, etc, all the way out to and beyond the 1000' mark. It was hard to tell at what distance the light faded to a level below that which would allow the shape of an animal to be discerned, but I can say from experience the single 4509 landing light in the certificated aircraft I fly has never lit up the runway and the surrounding ditches like these Baja lights do.

Since we have a high probability of encountering wildlife on the runway, these lights seem to fill the bill when it comes to "see and avoid" on the ground.

Now for the down-side... I think I'm going to have to install a less intense taxi light in the engine cowl as I suspect these Baja lights in the wingtips will not be appreciated by other pilots during ground ops.
 
The biggest problem with wingtip landing lights is you just cant get the light past the parallel wall in the lens. It means that you can can light in front of the wingtip, but not in front of the plane. Its a geometry problem.
 
A very timely discussion for me having received wing kit yesterday . .

I'm not sure I am liking the shape of the new style wing tips (compared to the old style Hoerner tips I had on my RV4s) or the tip lights.

My last -4 had Duckworks lights in each wing, one aimed down for taxi and one a hair up for landing. Worked great. I had the all in one nav/strobe lights in each wingtip so no tail light. Kahuna, is this what you have that you like better than the tip lights? Any current builders still putting in the all purpose Whelens and Duckworks?

I like the looks of the flat top Hoerner style tips much better and I'm very tempted to try to trade with someone and do the old school tips and lights like I had on my last plane.
 
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I have the Baja Designs Squadron lights. I took off before the dawn on Saturday morning. I was on the downwind when I realized that I hadn't activated the runway lights! They are bright.
 
bruceh said:
I have the Baja Designs Squadron lights. I took off before the dawn on Saturday morning. I was on the downwind when I realized that I hadn't activated the runway lights! They are bright.
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Pilot 1: Those Baja lights are really bright! -

Pilot 2: So, just how bright are they?

Pilot 1: They are so bright, they light up the runway on downwind . . . .

I know you meant that you did not need them for take off, but it did sound funny.

One a more serious note: Mike's post on the Baja lights show they are indeed bright and have decent coverage. I am still undecided on the duckworks or tip locations, but will expand my tip notch to be prepared either way.

Update: Updated my tip notch to larger dimensions and got the Baja lights. Mounting in the tips.
 
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One thing to check is the beam angle. Generally, wider beams are preferred for the taxi light, also for use as a daytime running light.

Dave
 
bjustus said:
I'm not sure I am liking the shape of the new style wing tips (compared to the old style Hoerner tips I had on my RV4s) or the tip lights.

My last -4 had Duckworks lights in each wing, one aimed down for taxi and one a hair up for landing. Worked great. I had the all in one nav/strobe lights in each wingtip so no tail light. Kahuna, is this what you have that you like better than the tip lights? Any current builders still putting in the all purpose Whelens and Duckworks?

I like the looks of the flat top Hoerner style tips much better and I'm very tempted to try to trade with someone and do the old school tips and lights like I had on my last plane.
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Im not exactly sure what you are asking here. When you say 'all in one', I believe what you are talking about is the 'external' nav/strobes that mount on the outside of the wingtip and also have the aft facing white light. A low percentage of RV's have this set up but it works just fine. Most have the 'embedded' nav/strobes in the lens of the wingtip which also requires the rudder white light.

I believe what you are asking is, are leading edge landing lights superior to wingtip versions?' And the answer is unequivocally YES. There are a number of reasons for this. You can find a discussion on this in my FAQ's which lays out the reasons why leading edge landing lights are superior to the wingtip versions in so many ways.

As for taxi and landing versions... Yes you can adjust the angles on the lights for taxi and landing. Whelen will do you one better. They have a landing light version called a 'taxi light', which has a wide spreader beam built into the lens. This puts a wide beam out in front of you ideal for taxiing. The landing light version is a long distance focused beam ideal for landing. Nearly all builders that buy my Whelen leading edge PAR36 landing lights buy one landing light and one taxi light. They put one landing light in one wing, and one taxi light in the other.
 
Kahuna said:
Whelen will do you one better. They have a landing light version called a 'taxi light', which has a wide spreader beam built into the lens. This puts a wide beam out in front of you ideal for taxiing. The landing light version is a long distance focused beam ideal for landing.
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The Baja Designs LED lights also have the ability to use different light patterns. From their website, http://www.bajadesigns.com/ProductDetail?ItemNumber=500003 :

Driving/Combo: Maximum trail coverage in a single light. The Driving/Combo pattern is equipped with both Wide Driving (44°) and spot (6°) optics to provide you with a smooth blend of light for both near field applications and distance (Lighting Zone 3)

Wide Cornering: BD was the first to develop a pattern specifically for cornering, dust and/or fog conditions. The Wide Driving pattern offers a 44° flattened horizontal beam for the ultimate in comfort lighting. (Lighting Zones 1 & 2)

High Speed Spot: A longer and narrower 6° beam focus for illumination further down the trail or road. The Spot pattern is designed to be used in conjunction with additional Wide Driving and/or Driving/Combo beam lights. (Lighting Zone 4 & 5)
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zones_truckbuggy_930.jpg


You also aren't stuck with whatever light diffuser comes with the light. For a small fee, they will ship you different diffusers.
 
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I talked to a rep at baja and he talked me out of the combo, saying the spots had plenty of spillover.
 
Mike, I got the Baja lights, box says they draw 3.5 amps but paperwork says they pull 10 amps during start up. What amp fuse or circuit breaker did you use? Did you use a relay too?? Look forward to hearing from you. Plane just out of the paint booth, so Im pretty psyched, Cheers G
 
simatos said:
Mike, I got the Baja lights, box says they draw 3.5 amps but paperwork says they pull 10 amps during start up. What amp fuse or circuit breaker did you use? Did you use a relay too?? Look forward to hearing from you. Plane just out of the paint booth, so Im pretty psyched, Cheers G
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Hmmm, that is interesting. I just got a set too. Funny, the beam spread for the spots on the website is wider than the combo, contrary to the spec sheet.

10 amps? Maybe a 4 amp fuse test is in order before installation.
 
Bill, thx
i haven't hooked them up yet, are you finding them narrower than you expected?? the unit plug has a 2 prong male plug but they sent a 3 plug female harness so thats gotta go back, must have picked the wrong one.............nutz
 
simatos said:
Mike, I got the Baja lights, box says they draw 3.5 amps but paperwork says they pull 10 amps during start up. What amp fuse or circuit breaker did you use? Did you use a relay too?? Look forward to hearing from you. Plane just out of the paint booth, so Im pretty psyched, Cheers G
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Look again at the paperwork. I believe the 10 amps is referring to their HID lights, not the LED lights.
 
On this issue of leading edge vs. tips:

Several years ago, some Bellanca Vikings suffered rot of the wood spar which was felt to be due to water entering through the leading edge light opening. It stands to reason that a wing with a hole in the front will allow more water to enter than one without.

Has this ever been an issue in RVs? Are people with leading edge lights more likely to have internal corrosion of the wing?
 
Baja Led question

I'm thinking of pulling out my landing lights that draw 12 amps each and installing the Baja SquadronRacer spot LED's in each wingtip. My question is this... will they work if I also installed some type of wig wag flasher.... and what type of flasher works with these? Thanks in advance.
 
I asked Baja about wig-wagging the Squadron Pro's - their answer was very clearly positive, should be no problem. I'm using a Perihelion Designs solid state flasher. Not flying yet but ground tests are positive.
 
wiring?

Thanks for your response Canadian Joy. I looked at the flasher you have and am confused about the wiring. I want to end up with with a both off, both on, and wig wag. From their web page schematics (ABCD), which one will give me what I need? Thanks again.
 
Mine are wired up like diagram A. Both lights are powered from one switch to be "on" at the same time. A separate low-current switch is used to wig-wag them. Pretty simple. Diagram B accomplishes the same goal, but using different types of switches. Diagrams C and D are introducing more complexity than I wanted.
 
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