LED Landing Light at Spruce

Interesting; last time I checked, they had not yet priced it. If it performs well, could be an interesting option.

I was going to go for an HID, but then a friend gave me a case of Q5609s, so I am set for quite a while.
 
Teledyne's offering is priced better than most. But, I think I'll stick with Halogen at almost 1/20th the price.

I have 1 nose bowl light and 2 wingtip lights on the Cherokee, and between all 3, I end up replacing about 1 bulb a year. Even if the LED lights last forever, it's just not a good ROI.

Now, OTOH, if a plane ONLY has the nose bowl light, then this makes perfect sense to me...
 
nyoung said:
Teledyne's offering is priced better than most. But, I think I'll stick with Halogen at almost 1/20th the price.

I have 1 nose bowl light and 2 wingtip lights on the Cherokee, and between all 3, I end up replacing about 1 bulb a year. Even if the LED lights last forever, it's just not a good ROI.

Now, OTOH, if a plane ONLY has the nose bowl light, then this makes perfect sense to me...
Click to expand...

I switched to HID landing lights a few years ago and have been very pleased with the results. The OEM 250W lamps had a published life expectancy of 20 hours and failed often enough to be a nuisance. They also produced enough heat to melt the plastic lens in front of them if left energized on the ground for more than 30 seconds. The HID last so much longer that I leave them on (flashing) from takeoff to touchdown day or night for added protection.

LED lamps have been improving steadily over the last several years and might just be ready for aircraft landing light replacement although I'm still concerned that this latest offering doesn't put as much light on the ground as the 55W HIDs I have. For one thing it's surprising that they recommend the same lamp for taxi and landing light replacement when the typical taxi light has a much wider beam than a landing light. I am considering one of the Teledynes as a replacement taxi light which is currently an original incandescent. It's also worth noting that the output from LEDs decreases over time and that the specified life is usually based on the point where the output has been reduced by half. HIDs also dim over time but the bulbs are replaceable at a cost similar to halogen lamps ($50-100), unfortunately in most cases the entire lamp has to be replaced with LED types.
 
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Max Beam Candlepower (MBCP)

Teledyne 30 watt LED : 165,000
$289
Xevision 35 watt HID : 500,000 (3200 lumens)
$469
Xevision 50 watt HID : 750,000 (5400 lumens)
$521

(all data from Aircraft Spruce)
 
nyoung said:
Even if the LED lights last forever, it's just not a good ROI.
OTOH, if a plane ONLY has the nose bowl light, then this makes perfect sense to me...
Click to expand...
Three things:
One, some of us have old electrical systems and are out of amps. Switching to LED frees up lots of amps, and is a lot cheaper than upgrading the electrical system. Between LED landing light and LED position lights, I can free up almost 33% of my alternator output and repurpose that output to other uses.
Two, my landing light is on the nose, and subject to vibration issues.
Three, I want one :)
 
PilotAlan said:
Three things:
One, blah blah blah blah blahdy blah.
Two, blah blah blah blah blahdy blahdy dee-blah.
Three, I want one :)
Click to expand...

Fixed that for you... :D

...the essential rules of airplane upgrades.
 
Steve said:
Max Beam Candlepower (MBCP)

Teledyne 30 watt LED : 165,000
$289
Xevision 35 watt HID : 500,000 (3200 lumens)
$469
Xevision 50 watt HID : 750,000 (5400 lumens)
$521

(all data from Aircraft Spruce)
Click to expand...

While MBCP isn't a very good indicator of the ability to illuminate a runway, it's' still useful for comparison. I guess I'll stick with the HIDs for now and maybe try the LED for a taxi lamp.
 
PilotAlan said:
Three things:
One, some of us have old electrical systems and are out of amps. Switching to LED frees up lots of amps, and is a lot cheaper than upgrading the electrical system. Between LED landing light and LED position lights, I can free up almost 33% of my alternator output and repurpose that output to other uses.
Two, my landing light is on the nose, and subject to vibration issues.
Three, I want one :)
Click to expand...
This. With a thirty amp generator LEDs have a great ROI. I just replaced my old position light bulbs with the inexpensive LED bulbs with the standard bayonet base from Spruce. Cheap fix and still looks original until you turn them on.
 
Excellent points, especially the last one :)


PilotAlan said:
Three things:
One, some of us have old electrical systems and are out of amps. Switching to LED frees up lots of amps, and is a lot cheaper than upgrading the electrical system. Between LED landing light and LED position lights, I can free up almost 33% of my alternator output and repurpose that output to other uses.
Two, my landing light is on the nose, and subject to vibration issues.
Three, I want one :)
Click to expand...
 
Hats of to Lance for using the correct term (lamp).


As for ROI, you should factor in reliability and capability and not simply rely on price. And and upgrade freeing up some amps is always a plus.
 
gismo said:
While MBCP isn't a very good indicator of the ability to illuminate a runway, it's' still useful for comparison. I guess I'll stick with the HIDs for now and maybe try the LED for a taxi lamp.
Click to expand...

Lance,
I think they meant the max candle power at beam center which is a very good indicator of the lamps ability to illuminate what's in front of you. In fact, it's what we use to calculate the lighting level directly in front of a lamp using the inverse square law. Simply divide the max CP at beam center by the square of the distance in feet to get the foot candles on the object. If there's a deer on the taxiway 100' in front of you, divide (for the Teledyne LED) 165000/100^2 = 16.5 foot candles. That's pretty good but I'm incorrectly assuming that there are no light loss factors for simplicity. It's gets a bit more complicated trying to determine the illuminance on the runway because you'll need the candle power curve from the manufacturer. With that and the angle of incidence, you can come up with accurate numbers but it's tedious. Lighting design software would be best but you'll need an accurate candle power curve or even better an IES type data file preferably from an independent testing company. The lumen output of the lamp alone is misleading since that's the total output of the lamp in all directions. We do use lumen output along with other parameters for lighting calculations where the lamp is mounted in a light fixture and the photometric data of the fixture is known (basically, how the light fixture uses the lumen output of the lamps). With sealed lamps the photometric data is a part of the lamp.
 
Steve said:
Max Beam Candlepower (MBCP)

Teledyne 30 watt LED : 165,000
$289
Xevision 35 watt HID : 500,000 (3200 lumens)
$469
Xevision 50 watt HID : 750,000 (5400 lumens)
$521

(all data from Aircraft Spruce)
Click to expand...

I was gonna say - Somewhere (AvWeb?) maybe a year or so ago they had a comparison of some of the HID and LED options for landing lights, and the LED's actually seemed to illuminate slightly *worse* than the original halogens, and they didn't hold a candle(power? :D) to the HID's.

I would get HID landing lights, and LED's the rest of the way around.
 
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