donaziza
Well Known Member
I "bought" my RV 8 about 2 years ago. The first time I flew in the dark, I flipped on the landing light switch for landing, but I would have had better luck if I had crawled out on the wing with a match between my teeth. (Always gets a snicker every time I tell that story
) I called the guy who built the airplane and he said the lights were from Walmart. Went and found them. $19.95, and it said "Not Street Legal". So I started researching here on VAF to see what other guys were doing. bullojm1 (the guy with the martini glass--I love martini's) with his Baja Dune buggy lights made a very compelling case with his here on VAF pictures. Then there's also "Bavafa" also here on VAF with the TrustFire 11000 lumen flashlights. I purchased one of those along with batteries. That light was great. It would light up the side of a hangar from 500' away (on the battery power). But I gave the project to a local mechanic, got it back with 3 of the 9 LED's not working, and the brightness of the light would start to fade after 30 seconds even with fully charged batteries. (Now Bavafa swears by them, ie they are working great for him, but then he knows how to do all this stuff by himself--as the majority of you out there reading this do)
So a local mechanic said "Hey Don, why don't you just put in Whelens. I went down to his house after dark with my TrustFire, and we compared it against spare Whelens he had in a box. The TrustFire, even with only 6 of its 9 LED's did a pretty fair contest against the Whelens, BUT, the point that he made was the Whelens were tried and tested, no RF noise, ie reliable. ( The WalMart jobs I had squealed something awful in my headset) That sold me. So I emailed Kahuna wanting two landing lights vs one landing and one taxi light. Kahuna convinced me to try the taxi light instead of two landing lights, explaining that I could swap it out if I wanted to. I tried the taxi/landing light configuration, decided I would rather have two landing lights, and Kahuna true to his word exchanged them for me. Now that's just me, maybe other guys would prefer the taxi/landing combo. Anyway, the two Whelens do a great job of lighting up the asphalt and the big 25 on the end of my runway. Now I'm not trying to push Whelens here, I have no connection with Kahuna or the Whelen company, I'm just writing this trying to help, so other guys can read, judge, and make up their own minds.
) I called the guy who built the airplane and he said the lights were from Walmart. Went and found them. $19.95, and it said "Not Street Legal". So I started researching here on VAF to see what other guys were doing. bullojm1 (the guy with the martini glass--I love martini's) with his Baja Dune buggy lights made a very compelling case with his here on VAF pictures. Then there's also "Bavafa" also here on VAF with the TrustFire 11000 lumen flashlights. I purchased one of those along with batteries. That light was great. It would light up the side of a hangar from 500' away (on the battery power). But I gave the project to a local mechanic, got it back with 3 of the 9 LED's not working, and the brightness of the light would start to fade after 30 seconds even with fully charged batteries. (Now Bavafa swears by them, ie they are working great for him, but then he knows how to do all this stuff by himself--as the majority of you out there reading this do)So a local mechanic said "Hey Don, why don't you just put in Whelens. I went down to his house after dark with my TrustFire, and we compared it against spare Whelens he had in a box. The TrustFire, even with only 6 of its 9 LED's did a pretty fair contest against the Whelens, BUT, the point that he made was the Whelens were tried and tested, no RF noise, ie reliable. ( The WalMart jobs I had squealed something awful in my headset) That sold me. So I emailed Kahuna wanting two landing lights vs one landing and one taxi light. Kahuna convinced me to try the taxi light instead of two landing lights, explaining that I could swap it out if I wanted to. I tried the taxi/landing light configuration, decided I would rather have two landing lights, and Kahuna true to his word exchanged them for me. Now that's just me, maybe other guys would prefer the taxi/landing combo. Anyway, the two Whelens do a great job of lighting up the asphalt and the big 25 on the end of my runway. Now I'm not trying to push Whelens here, I have no connection with Kahuna or the Whelen company, I'm just writing this trying to help, so other guys can read, judge, and make up their own minds.
