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RV 12 Cowling Landing Light

Jcurry

Well Known Member
Hello,
Has anyone installed a landing light in your RV12 cowling? If so, would you please share the details or link?

Thank you
 
Hello,
Has anyone installed a landing light in your RV12 cowling? If so, would you please share the details or link?

Thank you

All the RV-12's I've seen have the landing light mounted in the right wing, at the time of the build.

Maybe contact Van's about the lighting kit?
 
I have never seen one mounted in an RV-12 cowling. You may want to check out the Scrappy #45 video, Mike Patey shows how he installed three round landing lights in the front of his cowling. I thought hot gluing the light in place while building a molded socket on the inside of the cowling using the light as the mold was an interesting method.

I expect the problem with the RV-12 cowling will be finding a flush area that provides the desired mounting angle for the light to be effective. You may have to do a recessed cowling mount similar to some Cessna 172s. The AeroLEDs Aerosun rectangular and MicroSun would be interesting options over the typical round PAR36 style.

John Salak
RV-12 N896HS
 
You'd need to disconnect and reconnect the light whenever you're removing the cowl. Why add to your maintenance effort?

Dave
 
You'd need to disconnect and reconnect the light whenever you're removing the cowl. Why add to your maintenance effort?

Dave

+1
I bought a 6 that had this set up. Wasn't long & I was moving the light out to a wing because I got frustrated with repairing those wires (not having to deal with them on my other RVs...), guess this old dog is un re-trainable...
 
IMHO, cowling-mounted landing/taxi lights can be problematic -- limited space to install, high vibration area can lead to early failure, illuminate the backside of the prop disc thus interfering with forward night vision, etc. Besides, I prefer the pilot-side of the runway illumination that wingtip-mounted lights provide. Van's wing-mounted lights work well particularly when operating in the wing-wag enhanced-visibility mode.
 
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Hi John,
Thanks for the info. My intent is to use the landing light as a recognition light.

Is yours a 12 or a 12iS?

When it is anything other than CAVU conditions then I just leave the landing lights on wig wag in the 12iS. If the strobes, nav and wig wag landing lights don't make me visible to others then nothing will.
 
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