Night Lights

[Ironflight]

One pf the most frequent questions I get from other builders when they are looking at the Valkyrie is "So how well do those wing tip landing lights work?"Unfortunately, up until now, all i have been able to say is that "well, i like them as recognition lights...."

You see, about a month before I was ready for the first flight, they tore up our airport's only lit runway for major refurbishment. Consequently, we only had a narrow, unlit parallel taxiway to use for about 8 months, and the field was notam'ed out of service for night flying.

That ll changed about two months ago with the opening of the brand new runway, but as the plane was in the paint shop for the first part of that, and I was tied up at work for the second, I still hadn't had a chance to fly her at night! That changes last night, as I had taxied her across the Field to our every-other-week barbecue for a Little blatant showing off. When it was time to taxi home, I figured "why not get in a couple of landings, and see how the lights really work?!, out I went...

I have the Creative Air halogen lights mounted in the recessed wingtip light cutouts. each bulb is 75 watts,and I have one aimed for landing, and the other aimed for taxiing. I can now report that I would consider them "adequate" for the job at hand. They certainly aren't going to be mistaken for monster searchlights, but they gave me enough illumination to see the centerline, judge my height, and give me some peripheral vision. I actually like lower illumination levels at night, allowing my vision to stay night adjusted - if you like to flood the runway with light from end to end, then these will probably disappoint. But for my purposes, I am satisfied, and would use them again. I find that a very small percentage of my personal flying gets done in the dark anyways, and I can actually land just fine on a lit runway with no landing lights, so I really wasn't interested in spending a lot more for really bright stuff.

The lights do not seem to be hindered by shining "through" the strobe tubes in front of them, and their location makes them easy to service.

As usual, your own results may vary, depending on your expectations.

Paul