Tim Fitzpatrick

Tim Fitzpatrick

Active Member
I have installed in my wingtips (2 each wing) 4 MR-16 Halogen lamps (12V 75W), as sold by Vans and was taxing around the other night at dusk and they did not seem very bright. As it got darker I expected them to be more visible however that was not the case. I thought I had them focused fairly well, however that may not be the case. Has anyone else run into this? As always thanks for everyone?s help, take care
 
If you've got two 75W halogens in each wing, you've got a lot of candlepower! You should be lighting up the runway while on a one-mile final approach!

What size wire did you use? For 150W, you should have at least #12 wire (maybe even #10) running from the switch to the lamps, and then back to battery ground. Since your switch is running four 75W lamps, you should have #8 wire from the battery (+) to the switch. If your wire is sized too small, then it's heating up due to internal resistance (I2R losses) and costing you candlepower!
 
I always described the Halogen lights in the Val as "Adequate...barely". Fortunately, I can land pretty well at night on a lighted runway without landing lights (thanks to a persistent primary instructor decades ago). When I replaced them with HID's, I upped that to "OK". Don't expect extraordinarily good results with the tip light locations and MR16's was my take-away.

We went with AeroLED lamps in Duckworks mounts for the -3.

Paul
 
In Daylight displays, with my colleague having the LE Landing lights, the extra brightness of the wingtip 75W halogens is frequently commented on ;)

However, they are, I would think, "inclined" somewhat upwards for use as Landing Lights, and if that is what you want them for, need to be aimed considerably "down", esp on a taildragger.
 
Thanks

Thanks for the advice fella?s, I have #10 wire running out to the wingtips, however I am not real sure if the lights are focused where I want them. I have a set of ANVIS-9 NVG?s for my regular job and will put them on some night and see where the lights are really pointing on the ground. Is there such an animal as a ?spot? and ?flood? MR-16. Just wondering if maybe I have the wrong type of bulb. I have the ones that came with the kit so I bet they are the correct type, but thought maybe this was a possibility, thanks again.
 
upgrade to HID's

I found the standard 75W MR-16's just about useless. I was carefull about aiming. With two in each tip, I aimed one each for landing light and taxi light.

They are essentially useless as landing lights in my view. So, fortunately, there are at least two suppliers of HID retrofits for the MR-16 bulb mounts. These are only 50W or 55W or something like that, so less power req'd, and MUCH brighter. Actually bright enough to be useful as landing lights.

You have to mount a small power supply on the wing rib. Bob Kuykendall posted a picture of how we installed the power supplies in an earlier thread.

I don't know how to link old threads, but if you search for Duckworks power supply mounting, and look at the third post in the thread, there is a good picture.
 
scsmith said:
I found the standard 75W MR-16's just about useless.
Click to expand...

Me too. The RV-8 in my avatar has a single 75W MR-16 in each wingtip, and I've only tried landing it after dark... once. That was enough for me.

I swear the plain old incandescent GE4509 single 100W lamp in the nose of my old Cherokee did a much better job of lighting up the end of the runway for landing than those two 75W halogen lamps in the RV-8's wingtips do. They're mostly what I'd call "pinspots".
 
2 X 100 W

I have two 100W landing lights from Van's in the leading edges of the wings. We are not allowed night flying, but I noticed when landing at around sunset that the lights are certainly lighting the runway and will do fine in an emergency night landing if it would ever come to that.

I get commented that my wig-wag lights are very well visible on final, (during daytime) well before anything else is visible (strobes or the plane itself).

Regards, Tonny
 
I have a single halogen, 45W I think. It isn't great but I noticed right away it was better than the factory dual light system in my previous airplane, a Piper Pacer.
 
"We went with AeroLED lamps in Duckworks mounts for the -3"

Paul.. what AeroLED lamps are you using? I just ordered blank Duckworks so I could do the same.
 
Pilottonny said:
I have two 100W landing lights from Van's in the leading edges of the wings. We are not allowed night flying, but I noticed when landing at around sunset that the lights are certainly lighting the runway and will do fine in an emergency night landing if it would ever come to that.

I get commented that my wig-wag lights are very well visible on final, (during daytime) well before anything else is visible (strobes or the plane itself).

Regards, Tonny
Click to expand...


Not allowed night flying?:eek: When did Belgium go Communist? That's the best half of the day to fly!
 
Not sure about night VFR in Europe

I was in Belgium back in the early 1980?s, flying OH-58?s out of West Germany and they did not allow us to fly VFR at night in Belgium. I think we were flying around the town of Namur supporting the Belgium Commandos and we were flying in the afternoon and had to have our missions completed before it got dark or the Belgium folks were not too happy. It is a very pretty country with friendly folks and tons of history. Flying over the Ardennes you could imagine how that forest has played such a huge part in world history during the last century. I believe many of the countries in Europe do not allow VFR flying at night. I think Germany use to be that way also. We had a waiver since we were flying for the Army.
 
Night flying

To be more specific: VFR night flying is allowed in Belgium and also in a lot of other European countries, but............ not for experimentals!

I know that in France night flying is allowed for experimentals, as long as your engine and instruments are certified and maintained certified. Well...... I gues for a couple of hours night flying per year, it is not worth paying $ 5.000,- plus/year, for maintenance on an experimental, when you can do it yourselve, for free.

I have the night flying rating and love to fly on the edge of what is legally allowed (max. 30 min. after sunset), when I am the only one in the air, the lights come on, and the air is smooth........

Kind regards, Tonny
 
I had two MR16-75W (one in each wingtip) light and replaced them with bi-Xenon projector HID which improved the lighting significantly.
 
She en Parmetheus LEDs

Hi.. I had the same issue with my new RV and switched out the factory supplied halogens with Whelen Parmetheus LEDs and am very happy with the results. I fly a lot at night and these have done the trick. I bought mine from RMD (talk to Bob). Direct replacements that use less than half the power. Give em a try!

Happy night flying!

Best regards,

Bruce
 
Tim Fitzpatrick said:
.....
Is there such an animal as a ?spot? and ?flood? MR-16. Just wondering if maybe I have the wrong type of bulb. I have the ones that came with the kit so I bet they are the correct type, but thought maybe this was a possibility, thanks again.
Click to expand...

Definitely yes on the different beam angles. I use them in my kitchen spot and track lamps with different angles...:^)

Wiki has a good description of ANSI codes and typical box labels -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multifaceted_reflector

By comparison, the old standard 4509 bulb has a 6 degrees vert. and 12 degrees horiz. beam angle.

What marking is on your bulbs?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.