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Team Aerodynamix Light installation

Planecrazy232

Well Known Member
I have received so much information on this site that I wanted to give back by showing how I cut leading edge lighting into my plane.

When I bought my 6A it had a small dent in the outer portion of the right leading edge in the second bay. Hangar rash for sure from something bumping it. The plane had no nav lighting at all- so my mission was to add nav/strobes and landing/taxi lights.

After doing lots of research on what lighting to buy, (and getting sticker shock the whole time), I finally decided to go with the best I could buy- all certified LED lighting from Team Aerodynamix.

I'm not going to give a whole step by step as the very complete instructions that come with the leading edge kit do, but just what I did as far as cutting the holes in the wings.

So here is what I started with:




I cut out the templates as per the instructions and taped them in place:





Since this is a painted plane and the paint is 8 years old, I ran a heat gun into the end of the wing to warm things up before and during the cutting:



So here goes- deep breath-





continued.....
 
So there- I am committed now! So how to cut the section out? Well, aluminum has some of the properties of wood (so I have read). So why not a router with a wood bit?



Scary at first for sure, but the aluminum cut like butter! So smooth and controllable that I took it to within 1/8" and sometimes closer to the line. The tape shredded some, but the cut was fairly smooth.



So now to get to the finished lines and radius. Drum sander in a battery drill:



Getting there:



Complete! Came out super nice.



Next part is completing the parts to attach the lens to the wing. My next worry was doing the dimples for the lens screws. Remember my painted wing? Well I had the heat gun going this whole time. The surface was warm to the touch- not screeching hot at all. So here goes:



Perfect!! So here is the finished product. This was a challenging project, but in the end it turned out to be pretty easy. Start to finish for each side was about 3 hours.



I also used their nav/position/strobes. These are super nice lights also and man are they bright!!



Hopefully I didn't bore anyone and I hope this helps someone who is on the fence about installing these lights.
 
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Thanks for a great picture and explanation

That was awsome and very enlightening to me as I am going to install one in m plane which may even fly this year!

Thanks again,,,,,, wondered how you ran wire to it and the gauge?
 
Speed difference

I'm wondering if there's a speed penalty since the plexi is mounted on the inside creating a forward facing bump. Since you have done this on a flying aircraft, did you measure before/after speeds or otherwise detect any difference in speed/drag?

Bevan
 
I'll answer two questions here. My plane had tubes installed in the wings when it was built so I just pushed my wire through them. That being said, it is easy to run poly tubing from the wingtip to the root, and fasten it in place as far as you can reach from the wingtip and bellcrank access plate, and run the tubing at the root right into the fuselage at the aileron pushrod opening.

As far as any speed reduction, I did not see any performance degradation anywhere in speed, stalls, etc. Could there be? I suppose so, but not measurable (by my butt anyway). :D
 
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