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LED landing lights - too bright for taxi?

cccjbr6

Well Known Member
A question for those of you who have installed the much brighter LED landing lights like Baja Squadron Pro, the Fly LED combo landing lights and others. I am salivating over the options available to replace the PAR 36 LED landscape bulbs from Amazon on my 6-A. Have you found your new landing lights to be too bright for others on the ground during ground ops? If so how have you worked around that? One advantage I see to Paul's FlyLED combo landing/taxi lights is the ability to wire the fourth aim-able LED separately as a taxi light. Currently I have only one landing light switch and I assume I would have to run a new taxi light circuit through my VPX Pro to do that. (Note I am not a builder). I would appreciate insights and suggestions.
 
I used AeroLED's Sunspot 36 series landing (left wing) and taxi (right wing) lights. The taxi light lens fans the lighting laterally to light the area in a much more useful manner than the landing light's spotlight effect pointed straight ahead. Plenty of illumination, and I haven't heard any complaints from other pilots.

https://aeroleds.com/sunspot-36-products/
 
Knowing my Baja Squadron Pro lights might offend others, I've put most of the hardware in place to fit two small LED flood lights in the engine cowl. They'll fill in the area of lower light intensity immediately in front of the aircraft that results from having the Squadron Pro's mounted out in the wingtips. Plus I figure if I'm around other aircraft I can just use the small flood lights so as to avoid burning out the retinas of other pilots. I strongly suspect folks will not like the brightness of the big LED's, particularly if the taxiway or ramp is wet and that light reflects upwards into their eyes.
 
Knowing my Baja Squadron Pro lights might offend others, I've put most of the hardware in place to fit two small LED flood lights in the engine cowl. They'll fill in the area of lower light intensity immediately in front of the aircraft that results from having the Squadron Pro's mounted out in the wingtips. Plus I figure if I'm around other aircraft I can just use the small flood lights so as to avoid burning out the retinas of other pilots. I strongly suspect folks will not like the brightness of the big LED's, particularly if the taxiway or ramp is wet and that light reflects upwards into their eyes.

Would you please post some pix showing how you did this once you are finished? It sounds easier than running a new circuit to the wingtips.
 
Would you please post some pix showing how you did this once you are finished? It sounds easier than running a new circuit to the wingtips.

I would be happy to share whatever info I glean. Unfortunately we're now in the depths of winter so I'm unlikely to complete the rest of this modification until spring weather arrives. I'm in the middle of doing the annual inspection right now and progress is very slow, thanks to the temperature inside the hangar hovering around -10C. Needless to say, I anxiously await warmer weather!
 
Perhaps there's such a thing as too bright.

Are we sure PAR 36 bulbs aren't good enough for this application?
 
I don’t think there’s any such thing as too bright! :) Kinda like too much horsepower or too much money.

I’m planning to install wing mounted FlyLEDs in each wing. I’ve already decided that I’ll have to be careful about blinding others during taxi operations. Most airline types take some care to extinguish blinding lights when approaching oncoming traffic. I’m used to doing this at work... I’ll just have to adopt the technique for “little airplane” ops.

On a related note, extinguishing taxi lights is one way some pilots indicate they’re giving way to conflicting taxi traffic. Two planes approaching an intersection? Ground control says XYZ Airline, give way to Southwest. XYZ airline extinguishes taxi lights indicating to the Southwest crew that they may proceed to the runway at their standard 43 knot taxi speed unimpeded. :)
 
Perhaps there's such a thing as too bright.

Are we sure PAR 36 bulbs aren't good enough for this application?

Dave - I can think of only a very few instances where the standard PAR36 landing light is even close to good enough. Likewise for the PAR36 in taxi light configuration.

For taxi lights, some LED lights can be configured to provide far broader "spread" than a PAR36. Most importantly, the LEDs can do it without hot spots and shadows inherent in typical PAR36 lamps. The LED lamps can also be configured to produce whiter light, producing better contrast - our eyeballs love contrast.

When looking at landing lights there is no PAR36 that has ever made me feel comfortable touching down at our wildlife-infested airport. With the pair of Baja Squadron Pro LED lamps out on the wingtips I feel much more confident that I will be able to transition from landing speed to taxi speed while having a clear view ahead.

If you haven't tried a good LED landing light, and if you actually operate at night, you owe it to yourself to try out this modern lighting technology. It truly is a huge step up from traditional PAR36 lamps.
 
I would be happy to share whatever info I glean. Unfortunately we're now in the depths of winter so I'm unlikely to complete the rest of this modification until spring weather arrives. I'm in the middle of doing the annual inspection right now and progress is very slow, thanks to the temperature inside the hangar hovering around -10C. Needless to say, I anxiously await warmer weather!

My sympathies for the winter weather extremis. If you were in Birmingham today you would be inspecting in your favorite t-shirt. A weird New Year's Day down here.
 
Chris - I've done my time in Alabama, scraping ice off windows as well as nearly dying of heat/humidity. While I enjoy the south I also have to have a bit of winter to make me truly enjoy the heat of summer! :)

(I have to ask myself what kind of idiot I really am... Overnight low for tonight is forecast to be -21C. Yeah, I'm an idiot alright. Did you say you have space in your hangar down south?!?! LoL )
 
Dave - I can think of only a very few instances where the standard PAR36 landing light is even close to good enough. Likewise for the PAR36 in taxi light configuration.

For taxi lights, some LED lights can be configured to provide far broader "spread" than a PAR36. Most importantly, the LEDs can do it without hot spots and shadows inherent in typical PAR36 lamps. The LED lamps can also be configured to produce whiter light, producing better contrast - our eyeballs love contrast.

When looking at landing lights there is no PAR36 that has ever made me feel comfortable touching down at our wildlife-infested airport. With the pair of Baja Squadron Pro LED lamps out on the wingtips I feel much more confident that I will be able to transition from landing speed to taxi speed while having a clear view ahead.

If you haven't tried a good LED landing light, and if you actually operate at night, you owe it to yourself to try out this modern lighting technology. It truly is a huge step up from traditional PAR36 lamps.

Well there are PAR36 LED bulbs out there. Whelen has one that's supposed to be super bright, and super expensive...

You could go with other PAR36 LEDs, ones for tractors come to mind, that are a lot brighter than the standard incandescent, more features too.

Point is I see a lot of folks chomping at the bit to put the ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM BRIGHTNESS bulbs they can in their planes and I'm wondering if that's really the best way to go about this, considering we fly with other people out there.
 
Dave - you are absolutely right. Without question there are other solutions available, some of them much less expensive. No doubt about that. If one doesn't wish to undertake any form of "surgery" on their aircraft, and one's aircraft already has a standard incandescent PAR 36 bulb in place, then the existing PAR 36 LED replacements are certainly viable and, importantly, an easy upgrade to existing incandescent PAR 36 units. Just about anything is an upgrade over that vintage technology.

Others, on the other hand, don't mind doing a bit of "surgery". In my case, for instance, I have a pair of Baja Squadron Pro's installed for less money than the equivalent pair of Whelen Parmetheus lamps. The net effect is a similar cash outlay for more than double the light output. Since I was doing a net new installation it was actually easier to install the Baja's using their supplied mounting bracket than to custom fabricate a PAR 36 mount for my wingtips.

Why more light? I'll quote just one instance... Another owner of the same aircraft type as mine hit a deer at night on landing roll out. It cost them a new prop, spinner, cowl, engine mount, fuel injection servo and a few other components, not to mention the engine components that had to be replaced. Total cost was over $50K by the time they were done. Their experience has caused them to retrofit much brighter LED landing lights to their aircraft.

Sure, not all runway incursion incidents will be solved by brighter lights, but if one is already spending X amount of dollars on a lighting upgrade, why not get more light for the same expenditure and buy yourself a bit more margin of safety?
 
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