Wig-wag

Hello folks, I'm starting to wire-up my lights, and I have a dumb question.
I've never flown an airplane with wig-wag lighting and I realize I have no idea how it is used. I'm using FlyLEDs strobes, position and landing lights, with a wig-wag option.

Day - alone? landing?
Night - landing? with position lights.

Normally used just when landing? On final? In the pattern?

Is it really better than just having strobes on?

Thanks,

T.

My personal practice is to turn on wig-wag when ten miles out from the airport and they remain on until on the ramp (daytime). At night turn them off after landing if they are a hazard to ground traffic or complicate taxiing. I'm not aware of any FARs regulating the use of wig-wag, just use your best judgment. Wig-wag increases visibility beyond strobes for nearby daytime traffic that is directly in front of your aircraft. In my opinion wig-wag is a good feature to have especially if you can easily include it in your build....doesn't take any effort to use and might be a factor in avoiding a close encounter.

Strobes (anti-collision lights) are stated in FARs which regulate their use.

similar to Sam's....

My wig-wags are controlled through the VPX by airspeed. I turn my taxi and landing lights on just before takeoff and leave them on within ~10 miles of the airport and/or in a practice area or high traffic area. Above 85knots they will wig and wag. They will be steady for the takeoff roll and on short final.
(I may change the 85 to 70-75)

My personal method is to have the wig-wag on at all times, even when taxiing out and in. This makes me more visible to somebody out there that I don't see or don't know about.

I use the landing selection for..... landing and while on the ground at night.

Wig wag

I leave them on all the time. In addition to their anti-collision effect, they remind me that I?ve left the master switch on!

Mine are on wig-wag 100% of the time (day or night) except when I need them at night to see the runway. Then they get switched to steady

+1 to Andy and Scott

I get occasional feedback that the FBO team knows it?s me inbound based on my wig-wags, a pair of previous gen Rigid 2x2s in Duckworks mounts. They report it really is a differentiator in visibility.

Oh and if you don't have wig-wag capability, use a car blinker (electronic type not the heat one) for your lights. Just this little option significantly increases visibility.

Although my Whelen strobes are so bright

they will burn your eyeballs, I leave my Whelen PAR 46s on wig-wag 100% of the time until approaching to land at night.


Ron

Thanks

for all the replies..

So it sounds like a 3 position switch would be called for. Strobes (up), wigwag (down) and off (middle)? Make sense?

Av8torTom said:

for all the replies..

So it sounds like a 3 position switch would be called for. Strobes (up), wigwag (down) and off (middle)? Make sense?

Click to expand...

(Edited: Deleting invalid comment; pay no attention to me)

Jeff

thanks - on the FlyLED system the strobes and wigwag are the same LEDs so I'm thinking

Switch 1 = Position lights (on/off)
Switch 2 = Landing (up) off (middle) Taxi (down)
Switch 3 = Strobes (up) off (middle) wigway (down)

Av8torTom said:

for all the replies..

So it sounds like a 3 position switch would be called for. Strobes (up), wigwag (down) and off (middle)? Make sense?

Click to expand...

I just wired mine with a three position toggle but I have wired for down-off, middle-landing lights on steady, up- wigwag. I have all my other switches set up with down being off and I wanted them all to be consistent.

Sure

Can be wired any way that makes most sense to you.
I was asking if a 3 position switch made sense.

My plan

Here's what I'm doing. I have the traditional flyLEDs on the wingtips and duckworks/Baja in the leading edges

Nav/Pos Switch:
Down - Off
Middle - Position Lights
Up - Position + Strobes

Landing Lights Switch -
Down -off
Middle - Wigwag (just the landing lights)
Up - Full On

I'm wigwagging only the landing lights.

I turn on my wig wags just before takeoff. Part of my checklist. I leave them on during the entire flight day or night. If it's a night landing, the last thing I do after turning final is wig wag switch to off and both L/R landing light switches to on. I have the flyLED's nav/strobe and Baja Design spots for taxi/landing/wig wags.

I've posted this interesting note somewhere in another thread here on VAF. When I was researching the advantages to wig wags, someone had referenced a study done by Quantes Airlines. They had placed wig wags on a portion of their fleet and found that those WITH wig wags had a 10-50% reduction in bird strikes compared to those aircraft without them. A bird strike on an airliner is big money in lost revenue and repairs.

So, from that I can only conclude that with wig wags, an aircraft is more easily noticed by birds as well and that's a good thing too.

Here is a picture taken of my plane. Wig wags were on so this is actually only ONE Baja Design wingtip LED light. This was about 20 miles out from where the picture was taken. I'm loving these LEDS!

Down off, middle wig wag, up both

The natural flow of switches in my panel is down off, up on. I used the middle for wig wag.

Av8torTom said:

... on the FlyLED system the strobes and wigwag are the same LEDs so I'm thinking...

Click to expand...

Hi Tom

For our "Original" kit this is correct. We figured for those daytime flyers that had no landing lights, having something wigwagging is far better than having nothing.

For our "Works" kit the wigwag function is associated with the landing lights, as they have better forward reach, so it makes sense to group these functions on the same switch.
Then when you turn the strobes on, depending on a switch setting on the controller board, the strobe LEDs can either do their regular strobe thing (on the opposite wing to the wigging or wagging landing light), or they can also be set to join in the wigwag show along with the landing lights.
Just in case you weren't bright enough already...

For a minimal switch setup I would go with:
Switch 1: Position/Position + Strobes
Switch 2: Landing/Wigwag
Switch 3: Taxi

Switch 1 & 2 could be either centre-off type or progressive (off-on-on) switches.

Thanks Paul

OK, I think I was confused because the instructions talk about needing the heat sinks on the strobe LEDs for their wigwag function...

Wing wag considerations

I just wanted to share my rationale for how to arrange switches for the landing lights based on functional and safety considerations. This is part of a conversation I have had with Paul at Flyleds. I am building an RV-7A that will be IFR capable with two Duckworth style landing lights.

I looked at how to arrange switches and functions from a couple of considerations.

1. Based on phases of flight
2. Safety and failure modes

1. Phases of flight
a. Startup and taxi for takeoff
i. Landing lights in low power (both on) continuous.
b. Line up and take off (VFR & IFR)
i. Landing lights in high power (both on) continuous.
c. Climb out (VFR)
i. Landing lights in high power (both on) in wing wag.
d. Climb Out (IFR)
i. Landing Lights off
e. Cruise (VFR)
i. Landing Lights in wing wag.
f. Cruise (IFR)
i. Landing Lights off
g. Descent and join pattern (VFR)
i. Landing lights in wing wag.
h. Descent and approach capture (IFR)
i. Landing lights off.
i. Established on Final approach (IFR and VFR)
i. Landing lights on Continuous.
j. Ground ops to parking (beyond the hold line)
i. Landing lights in low power (both on) continuous
2. Safety considerations
a. Probability of loss of function or erroneous function during (a),(c),(e), (g), (j)
i. Not critical < (1:10 E-3 per flight hour)
b. Probability of loss of function or switching to wing wag during (b), (d),(f), (h), (i)
i. Critical < (1: 10E-6 per flight hour)
c. Probability of not being able to switch off landing lights (a) through (j)
i. Critical < (1:10E-6 per flight hour)
I considered day time and night time VFR and IFR operations together with past experiences of having landing light failures at night at critical times on poorly lighted airfields. Training here in the US is focused on being able to land at night without the aid of landing lights so if the lights go into wing wag or start flickering the training is to turn them off and concentrate on flying the plane to a landing.
Of course it is possible to overthink this and make it way more complicated than it needs to be.
Cutting to the chase ? I would go with a variation on your option 2 (DIAGRAM B) where the two switches are labeled
1 (on -off) Landing lights (DPST) Basically a ?kill? switch.
2 (On-off-on) (Taxi - both on low power)? (continuous ? both on high power)? (wing-wag) (DPDT/TPDT ?) This configuration of switch positions makes the sequence of operations match the order of needs. I haven?t thought through the wiring for the DPDT/TPDT switch so depending on how you have arranged the circuit that may not work and it may need some further thought on the switch configuration needed.
This configuration adds a switch to the panel but makes the operational procedures very straightforward for the more critical IFR procedures. Getting distracted by technology is a very real problem even for professional pilots so having a simple way out is important.
I could make a guess at the circuit you have for the wing wag module but my thought was to just add resistors in the ?Taxi? switch contacts to drop the landing light LED power. I am using the Duckworth rectangular models with H3 LED lamps from one of the Amazon suppliers. I have tried a couple of different offerings to check out the beam pattern and settled on one as the preferred solution. I haven?t done any nighttime testing yet to figure out what the ballast resistor needs to be for the taxi function.

Paul suggested an alternate method for the "Taxi" mode that needs more thought and more work.

Keith Turner

Wing wag considerations

I just wanted to share my rationale for how to arrange switches for the landing lights based on functional and safety considerations. This is part of a conversation I have had with Paul at Flyleds. I am building an RV-7A that will be IFR capable with two Duckworth style landing lights.

I looked at how to arrange switches and functions from a couple of considerations.

1. Based on phases of flight
2. Safety and failure modes

1. Phases of flight
a. Startup and taxi for takeoff
i. Landing lights in low power (both on) continuous.
b. Line up and take off (VFR & IFR)
i. Landing lights in high power (both on) continuous.
c. Climb out (VFR)
i. Landing lights in high power (both on) in wing wag.
d. Climb Out (IFR)
i. Landing Lights off
e. Cruise (VFR)
i. Landing Lights in wing wag.
f. Cruise (IFR)
i. Landing Lights off
g. Descent and join pattern (VFR)
i. Landing lights in wing wag.
h. Descent and approach capture (IFR)
i. Landing lights off.
i. Established on Final approach (IFR and VFR)
i. Landing lights on Continuous.
j. Ground ops to parking (beyond the hold line)
i. Landing lights in low power (both on) continuous
2. Safety considerations
a. Probability of loss of function or erroneous function during (a),(c),(e), (g), (j)
i. Not critical < (1:10 E-3 per flight hour)
b. Probability of loss of function or switching to wing wag during (b), (d),(f), (h), (i)
i. Critical < (1: 10E-6 per flight hour)
c. Probability of not being able to switch off landing lights (a) through (j)
i. Critical < (1:10E-6 per flight hour)
I considered day time and night time VFR and IFR operations together with past experiences of having landing light failures at night at critical times on poorly lighted airfields. Training here in the US is focused on being able to land at night without the aid of landing lights so if the lights go into wing wag or start flickering the training is to turn them off and concentrate on flying the plane to a landing.
Of course it is possible to overthink this and make it way more complicated than it needs to be.
Cutting to the chase ? I would go with a variation on your option 2 (DIAGRAM B) where the two switches are labeled
1 (on -off) Landing lights (DPST) Basically a ?kill? switch.
2 (On-off-on) (Taxi - both on low power)? (continuous ? both on high power)? (wing-wag) (DPDT/TPDT ?) This configuration of switch positions makes the sequence of operations match the order of needs. I haven?t thought through the wiring for the DPDT/TPDT switch so depending on how you have arranged the circuit that may not work and it may need some further thought on the switch configuration needed.
This configuration adds a switch to the panel but makes the operational procedures very straightforward for the more critical IFR procedures. Getting distracted by technology is a very real problem even for professional pilots so having a simple way out is important.
I could make a guess at the circuit you have for the wing wag module but my thought was to just add resistors in the ?Taxi? switch contacts to drop the landing light LED power. I am using the Duckworth rectangular models with H3 LED lamps from one of the Amazon suppliers. I have tried a couple of different offerings to check out the beam pattern and settled on one as the preferred solution. I haven?t done any nighttime testing yet to figure out what the ballast resistor needs to be for the taxi function.

Paul suggested an alternate method for the "Taxi" mode that needs more thought and more work.

Keith Turner