Advice on Landing Light(s)

[Florida Boy]

Taking delivery soon on my Wing Kit and have included the LN Wing Tip LED kit for strobe/nav lights.

Now wondering about landing light and would lean toward the 'LL LED Kit A' that Van's offers, just for MFR uniformity with the wingtip and tail lights.
I don't expect heavy nighttime use, but want to be adequately equipped should the occasional need arise.

I'm building a taildragger.

What's the braintrust here say?
Is one Aero LED SunSpot LX (Par36, 1500W) in one wing enough, or do I need to consider one in each wing?
Also, is there any need for a "Taxi light"? Seems like that might be overkill...?

Thanks for any experience-based opinions.

[D Weisgerber]

I think you'll want a taxi light since you're building a taildragger. On the ground with the tail down the taxi light will be aligned with the runway or taxiway. The landing lights will be aligned with the runway with the tail up.

[BobTurner]

+1. Landing lights are not on the required equipment list for night flying, and, in fact, you should have no trouble landing at night on a runway with reasonable lighting. However, some taxiways, ramp areas, etc, may have poor or non-existent lighting. Given a choice of only one, I’d go for a taxi light over a landing light.

[Florida Boy]

OK, thanks for the info guys. Now, any recommendations for taxi light mounting kits and/or configurations for a taildragger?
Can't seem to see anything in Van's or in AeroLED except references to bulbs.

[Canadian_JOY]

Take a look at FlyLEDS - Paul makes a heckuva product and provides terrific service, even all the way from Australia.

[rleffler]

Originally Posted by Florida Boy

OK, thanks for the info guys. Now, any recommendations for taxi light mounting kits and/or configurations for a taildragger?
Can't seem to see anything in Van's or in AeroLED except references to bulbs.

Give Geoff at AeroSport Products a call to see if he taxi light will work on a RV-14. I haven’t spoken with him in awhile and don’t know what Rv-14 specific products he has these days.

[ty1295]

Originally Posted by Canadian_JOY

Take a look at FlyLEDS - Paul makes a heckuva product and provides terrific service, even all the way from Australia.

2nd this, all my lighting is his and I get compliments all the time.

[Paul from Flyleds]

Hi Randy

For your intended mission profile you could use two of our Combo lights, which were designed with tail draggers in mind. This way you get to have both landing and taxi lights on both wings so you can still see where you're going when the tail is on the ground.

Our The Original position and strobe light kit fits your wing tip light bays as well.
We also sell an RV-14 harness integration kit which allows for the Flyleds wing kit and one of our tail lights to easily plug into the Van's wing and empennage wiring harness.

Click the Flyleds logo to come for a visit! You'll see we have a bunch of other options and combinations as well.

[wjb]

Originally Posted by Canadian_JOY

Take a look at FlyLEDS - Paul makes a heckuva product and provides terrific service, even all the way from Australia.

I put in a Duckwork's kit on each wing when building, which came with PAR36 halogens. After getting it in the air, I found these halogens were really not all that bright and sucked quite a bit of power. I retrofitted with FlyLEDs "Combo Leading Edge Landing/Taxi light" kits in each wing. The bolt pattern match and heatsinks fit through the PAR36 hole after removal. I needed to trim a bit from the corners to fit them in through the lens hole, but other than that it was a piece of cake. Great product!

[RV6-KPTW]

Randy,

I went with Vans standard offer. For taxi, I merely aimed one lite down, leaving the other in flight attitude.