LED landing lights - too bright for taxi?

[Canadian_JOY]

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 )

[bret]

The Baja Design XL pro has a 25% dimming feature.

[BMC_Dave]

Originally Posted by Canadian_JOY

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.

[Canadian_JOY]

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?