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Which replacement LED leading edge lights to buy?

Flyer2017

Active Member
My 2003 RV-9A has the original 55 watt incandescent lights in the Duckworks reflectors. To my aging eyes, they are like a couple of candles trying to pierce the darkness. I want to replace them with new LED lights. I'm considering the Flyleds combo taxi/landing lights - one in each wing. Each group has 3 landing lights at 1200 lumens each and one 1200 lumen led light that can be separately fed and adjusted to use as a taxi light. I'd run the 3 light clusters in each wing together (currently no wig-wag control available from Flyleds) thru the old landing light switch and the two adjustable taxi lights together thru the old taxi light switch. Paul at Flyleds says the individual lights draw about 1 amp each, so the total for the landing lights would be about 6 amps and the taxi lights about 2 amps. I'd have to run an extra wire from each wing for the taxi lights. They are kind of pricey, but put out a lot of light. Duckworks has an led replacement but it doesn't look like it would put out the same amount of light and it won't allow me to project taxi and landing light from each wing.

Has anyone already done this installation? Any advice?

I don't want to experiment with Chinese flashlights or other arcane solutions and would rather go with something made for my RV. The lumen output of the old 55 watt lamps is supposedly about 6-700 lumens so this setup would put a lot more light out for landing and taxiing.
 
I have assembled the FLYLEDS for my RV9A but not yet installed. I have bench tested them and they work pretty nicely.

Pricey? $599? For Landing lights, Taxi lights, Nav Lights, Strobes and WigWag? That comes with a controller?
 
Have you looked at the baja designs lights? Alot of guys seem to like them and that was my plan.
 
I looked at the Baja Design lights with 3 or 4 lights. They seem good and sturdy but pretty pricey and require making a fixture to mount them in and then mounting them in the Duckworks aluminum part that spans between the wing ribs. They (I think) are all wired together as a unit and I want to use one focused as a taxi light in each wing with a wider spread and the others focused further out as landing lights. I don't want to redo my wingtip position and strobe lights at this time, just refit the current lights in my wing leading edges for better vision on landing at night. The 4 light Flyleds light seems to require less work to put them in our plane and suit the purpose. Anyone installed them yet?
 
LED

For what its worth, I put good ol Amazon / Ebay "cheapies" with the intent of swapping them out later but they actually really work good with no complaints, very bright and no interference though my headsets either
 
Before yoy open you wallet, replace the 55 watt bulbs with the 100 watt bulbs. They cost a couple of bucks each.

I have been using them for four or five years and they will light up the runway from 400 feet.

My goal is to hold off another couple of years as LED lights are still evolving.
 
I've got the squadron pro spots in my Duckworks. Not hard to do. Pull the bezel off the light, make a piece of sheetmetal with a cutout to match, and sandwich it behind the bezel. I put some nutplates on the DW mounts and put some springs behind the outboard corners of the new mount plate so I can gunsight them towards the middle. The spot lights have plenty enough spill over to light up the taxiway right in front of the airplane. Don't need wide angle lights. They're bright, they don't draw much. They are great for wig-waging for recognition. I never turn them off below 10Kft.

That said, you could throw some 100w or even 120w halogens in the Duckworks and you would see and been seen for a lot less money. Gotta make sure you've got big enough wiring for that.

I haven't seen the FlyLeds landing lights. Unless they have some sort of spot lenses like the BD lights, they won't really throw very far. Raw lumens doesn't necessarily translate into usable light down the runway. I'm a happy customer of their position/strobe lights.

Ed Holyoke

I looked at the Baja Design lights with 3 or 4 lights. They seem good and sturdy but pretty pricey and require making a fixture to mount them in and then mounting them in the Duckworks aluminum part that spans between the wing ribs. They (I think) are all wired together as a unit and I want to use one focused as a taxi light in each wing with a wider spread and the others focused further out as landing lights. I don't want to redo my wingtip position and strobe lights at this time, just refit the current lights in my wing leading edges for better vision on landing at night. The 4 light Flyleds light seems to require less work to put them in our plane and suit the purpose. Anyone installed them yet?
 
I looked at the Baja Design lights with 3 or 4 lights... They (I think) are all wired together as a unit and I want to use one focused as a taxi light in each wing with a wider spread and the others focused further out as landing lights. Anyone installed them yet?

Just an FYI... the Baja Squadron lights are available with different lenses. They make a "combination" unit which has two clear lenses and two "spreader" lenses to cover each of the 4 LEDs. This gives both good distance penetration and good spread for taxi.

I have a pair of the Squadron Pro's in my aircraft, mounted out in the wingtips. Short of airliners I've never had as much light available for both landing and taxi. Mine are the really tight spot beams. I've been giving consideration to installing the combination lens on at least one of them to get some light closer to the nose of the airplane for taxi purposes, but have opted instead to put in some inexpensive small flood lights in the cowl which are controlled by their own independent switch.

By the way, I wig-wag the Squadron Pros using the wig-wag module from Perihelion Designs. When flying the FISK arrival at Oshkosh this summer the controller at FISK indicated he could easily see us from about 8 miles back. As he said... "Love those LEDs!"
 
+1 for Baja

Just an FYI... the Baja Squadron lights are available with different lenses. They make a "combination" unit which has two clear lenses and two "spreader" lenses to cover each of the 4 LEDs. This gives both good distance penetration and good spread for taxi.

I have a pair of the Squadron Pro's in my aircraft, mounted out in the wingtips. Short of airliners I've never had as much light available for both landing and taxi. Mine are the really tight spot beams. I've been giving consideration to installing the combination lens on at least one of them to get some light closer to the nose of the airplane for taxi purposes, but have opted instead to put in some inexpensive small flood lights in the cowl which are controlled by their own independent switch.

By the way, I wig-wag the Squadron Pros using the wig-wag module from Perihelion Designs. When flying the FISK arrival at Oshkosh this summer the controller at FISK indicated he could easily see us from about 8 miles back. As he said... "Love those LEDs!"

I got extra lenses to enable swapping after testing. Also, the Baja light prices vary widely, so look at the second or third page of google listings. They make a small and large style. I used the smaller one for the tips (before Pauls offering) and for the leading edge, the larger is more powerful and will fit. Electrically they are dead quiet a major plus.

I found these guys had be best pricing in the past.
 
A little more info on Flyleds

I haven't seen the FlyLeds landing lights. Unless they have some sort of spot lenses like the BD lights, they won't really throw very far. Raw lumens doesn't necessarily translate into usable light down the runway. I'm a happy customer of their position/strobe lights.

Ed Holyoke

Flyleds has more than one kit option for landing lights. Their "Combo Lights" are what this post was originally about, which is a kit containing four Cree LEDs that should meet the same specs as the LEDs in the Baja Squadron Pro. Combo lights are mounted on a square board that can be fit up in the duckworks equipment, mounted in a PAR36 sized fixture, or custom mounted according to your situation. The Combo Lights are $199 per kit (if you're doing one in each wing, you'll need two kits), and have one light that can be adjusted and controlled independently of the other three to provide taxi lighting.

Flyleds uses collimators to focus the light into the spot pattern. Collimators do functionally the same thing that a lens or reflector would do, and they are very efficient at getting the light where you need it.

They also have "The Works" kits, which are an integrated unit that combines their wingtip position/strobe kit with three landing light spots. The spots in the Works kits are the same ones that come in the combo kit; they're super-bright and use the same collimators. Works kits are $599 (enough for both wingtips).

You can find more info at Flyleds site here, or on our site here.
 
I got extra lenses to enable swapping after testing. Also, the Baja light prices vary widely, so look at the second or third page of google listings. They make a small and large style. I used the smaller one for the tips (before Pauls offering) and for the leading edge, the larger is more powerful and will fit. Electrically they are dead quiet a major plus.

I found these guys had be best pricing in the past.

I've been very happy with my Baja Squadron Pros on my RV 7 with the spreader lenses on the bottom two elements(4 in all). Use with the standard wig wag and often for daylight recognition. Highly recommended.
 
Ive just taken AeroLED taxi lights and landing lights out of my Husky... less than 50 hours use. two of each. also have a wig-wag unit.
Happy to sell all at half price plus shipping.

I've fitted ZipTips Premiere, so don't need the AeroLEDS now...
 
FlyLEDS are excellent choice. And exceptional value for money...

I have a set of FlyLEDS on my RV-10. And I replaced the leading edge PAR36 in the Duckworks kit with the 4 spot set from FlyLEDS.

I fly IFR/Night and they are a good replacement. They use a special type of reflector and an additional lens cover is available if people want to "spread the light" more on a single pot for taxying, however, I did not find it necessary.

I had a set of 55W HID's and the light output seems better. Deeper penetration and just as clear.

The current draw is about the same also ~3.5A per side.

Easy to replace. Fits in the existing Duckworks holes and price is very good for a full set over the other options.

For the RV-10, replacement requires you take the wingtips off, but this is pretty easy and makes the replacement very easy.

But even more important..... support from Paul is excellent. :)

Very happy.
 
Squadron Pro and Brackets

We upgraded our RV-6 and -8 to Squadron Pro lights, and love them!

I had some brackets made at a local sheet metal shop, and a few other RV'ers wants a pair so I got some extras made.. selling at cost if anyone's interested.

Here are some pics of before/after.

Cheers,
James.


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after replacing just one side:
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before and after:
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Wig Wag Wiring

(A how-to-wire conversation is developing on a classified thread, and those are auto-deleted after 30 days, so I'm going to transition to posting over here for posterity :).


We did something a bit..complicated, but really liked how it turned out.

We used a 3-position switch for each light (one for landing, one for taxi).

Middle is "off", Up is "solid", Down is "Wig (or Wag)"

That way, it's what-you-see-is-what-you-get on the switches.. not a separate wig/wag mode switch that overrides another on/off switch for the lights, etc.
And since the Landing and Taxi switches are side by side, you can easily flip them both on/off together with one finger if desired.

The more complicated bit came with the backlit LED switches -- I wanted to have the "wig" and "wag" labels flash when the actual wing lights flash, so you could see what they're doing and be reminded which mode you're set on (kind of like how your car shows you when your turn signal is on).
But my co-owner wasn't sure he'd like that, so I made a switch behind the panel that could toggle between the modes. Turns out we both love the feature, so that extra mode-switch wasn't necessary.

Here's how it looks: (there's a video in this album that walks through it)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/NdgKZkVJodjyyBTV7

I'll try to dig up my wiring drawings if anyone wants to do it the same way.

**update**

I posted wiring diagrams in that same Google album linked above. Hopefully they make sense (look at them from Page 1 to Page 5 in order and the text tries to explain how it works).

- James
 
James, the brackets are gone again from the classifieds.

Do you still have them?

Which Duckworks did you originally have? The original halogens or Par36?
 
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