LED Landing Lights

drgwentzel

drgwentzel

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Flyers,

Has anyone put LED landing lights on their certificated aircraft yet. If so how are they?

I am thinking of putting an LED aviation red beacon on the tail of my C177RG. I'm sick of hearing the intermittent whine in my headset everytime it flashes. "weeeeo......weeeeo....weeeeo..." I have no intension of trouble shooting grounding wires and alternator diodes, etc. so don't even recommend that. Further, my current beacon also sends my amp meter needle into the negative on each flash which upsets me too. I have a new voltage regulator and new alternator as of last week so that is not an issue.

These LED's sound great...
1) they're brighter
2) they use less amps
3) they produce significantly less heat
4) they're lighter
5) use no external power supply
6) they last anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 hours (basically will outlast the airframe)

The downside...they're about 2 to 6 times more expensive, but if you don't have to replace them and pay a mechanic to install new bulbs you'll be way ahead of the game in just a few years.

Anyone have any experience on LED position lights too for certificated aircraft?
 
drgwentzel said:
Flyers,

Has anyone put LED landing lights on their certificated aircraft yet. If so how are they?

I am thinking of putting an LED aviation red beacon on the tail of my C177RG. I'm sick of hearing the intermittent whine in my headset everytime it flashes. "weeeeo......weeeeo....weeeeo..." I have no intension of trouble shooting grounding wires and alternator diodes, etc. so don't even recommend that. Further, my current beacon also sends my amp meter needle into the negative on each flash which upsets me too. I have a new voltage regulator and new alternator as of last week so that is not an issue.

These LED's sound great...
1) they're brighter
2) they use less amps
3) they produce significantly less heat
4) they're lighter
5) use no external power supply
6) they last anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 hours (basically will outlast the airframe)

The downside...they're about 2 to 6 times more expensive, but if you don't have to replace them and pay a mechanic to install new bulbs you'll be way ahead of the game in just a few years.

Anyone have any experience on LED position lights too for certificated aircraft?
Click to expand...

I have a LED tail beacon and it works great. I may convert my position/strobe lights to LEDs as well but for now the high cost and effort has me waiting for something more cost effective. As to the LED landing lights, the ones I saw at Osh last summer are nowhere near as bright as HID (which I have) and I wouldn't consider them at this time. Also you should know that LEDs don't "last forever", they have finite life defined by the run time to the point where the output has decreased to half the original. Typically for these high powered LEDs that's still at least several thousand hours although I don't know if half bright would be bright enough.
 
My friend put LED lights and new, high-intensity strobes in his Travel Air. Those, combined with the new paint job, make people think his plane is much newer than mine when parked next to eachother on the ramp. In reality, my plane is 4 years newer than his.

The brighter and lack of noise through the headset are the two things that win me over. Plus, it does make the plane look newer than it is (never a bad thing since we're flying around in planes that otherwise look old). They're on the list for upgrades when the time comes, i.e. when they break or when I've run out of other stuff to upgrade.

As far as a landing light is concerned: I've not seen those available, I've just seen the HID STC, which sounds like a good idea mainly due to the fact that the old incandescent landing lights have this habit of burning out. A lot. I've found that usually happens when you come in for landing and think "You know, this landing light has lasted a lot longer than I thought it would." I'd like to do it at some point, but that's also on the "when the time comes" list. Major functional upgrades come first. Since landing lights are cheap to buy and easy to replace, I'll keep on just replacing those for now.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
The brighter and lack of noise through the headset are the two things that win me over.
Click to expand...
Are you talking about noise from the strobe power supply?

That could be a couple of things. It could be an indicator of an open ground, a ground loop, or a power supply filter going bad. I used to have that issue and new the PS was on its last legs. I wanted to split the wingtip strobes and the beacon strobe anyways so I bought a new PS that could handle that type of configuration, put in a split switch and the noise is all gone.
 
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I am trying to get Cessna to issue a EO on converting the beacon lamp on my 182 to LED...I have burnt out 4 bulbs in 450 hours.
 
We have the HID lights on both wingtips installed by the prior owner. Also have the "reostat" that allows them to be constantly only or a "Strobe/Pulse" feature. They are on a 210.

Once, My partner flew into Chicago Midway and the controller told an aircraft on approach to follow the "jet that just landed", oops that was a tiny 210 but it sure was lit up! I love it. We leave them on at all times.

One oddity. We have a stormscope. The first week we flew the plane, we joked that a storm kept displaying on the stormscope and no matter what direction of flight we took-we just couldn't shake that storm. Turned out its interfirence of the reostat on "pulse" mode....
 
The radio noise is solved by simply adding a noise limiting circuit to the device power input. For example only... add a 12VDC capacitor to the power leg of the lamp and the noise goes away!

Most LED lamps now have this incorporated in the lamps themselves. See my previos post on Rigid R+ PAR36 lamps... I have three installed on my Piper Cherokee and not a single hint of radio noise... They were designed for aircraft by a pilot/owner.

http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1555458&postcount=18
 
We have LED landing lights on our entire fleet. I think MX told me he has only replaced one in three years.

I often hear comments on the radio about the brightness of our lights.
 
My personal aircraft, as well as the fleet I teach in, are all LEDs (with the exception of one aircraft that came with HIDs). They are noticeably brighter than the bulbs they replaced and draw under 2 amps. The most important thing is reliability--we've put 15,000 hours on the fleet since switching and the only one that was replaced was likely bad from the factory... it died in under two months.

Just for a reference, I'm not sure what manufacturer quotes 20,000+ hours; both the ones we run estimate around 10,000.
 
Our local FBO swapped landing light on their Skyhawk for LED. They have an old model Skyhawk (172M or N?) which has landing light in the nose, like on Cherokees. I noticed one bad thing about that light: it is much too focused. When looked straight ahead, it's excessively bright -- bright enough to be seen at miles in all kinds of daylight conditions, which is good. But even 20 degrees off the nose it provides no safety benefit whatsoever. Also it blinds anyone at the ramp who does not expect a Skyhawk to have a light like that.
 
I've found LEDs don't through light as far as HIDs, but run way cooler, and don't care if they're turned on and off frequently.

Best setup IMO

LED taxi lights (rig as a blinker or wig wag you want recogs)
HID for landing lights

Of course LEDs make great nav lights, strobe lights etc.
 
benzhow said:
We have the HID lights on both wingtips installed by the prior owner. Also have the "reostat" that allows them to be constantly only or a "Strobe/Pulse" feature. They are on a 210.

Once, My partner flew into Chicago Midway and the controller told an aircraft on approach to follow the "jet that just landed", oops that was a tiny 210 but it sure was lit up! I love it. We leave them on at all times.

One oddity. We have a stormscope. The first week we flew the plane, we joked that a storm kept displaying on the stormscope and no matter what direction of flight we took-we just couldn't shake that storm. Turned out its interfirence of the reostat on "pulse" mode....
Click to expand...

Storm scope eh? Not the best instrument from the ghetgo.
 
Does Special Light Sport count as certificated? If so, yes. I designed, fabricated and got factory approval to install a pair of LED landing lights on my CTSW. They work great and they don't cause a generator alarm light on final like the halogen lamp the factory sells.
 
Old Geek said:
Does Special Light Sport count as certificated? If so, yes. I designed, fabricated and got factory approval to install a pair of LED landing lights on my CTSW. They work great and they don't cause a generator alarm light on final like the halogen lamp the factory sells.
Click to expand...
Good for you getting LoA from them. Although I expected FD to make a factory option by now (probably would cost 10 times what you spent). The 2011 Remos GX comes with factory LED lights all around and they work very nicely. The landing light has just the right brightness and spread.
 
You can leave it on all the time because it won't wear out for a long long time. Bulb life is loooong. That is the main advantage. They light just fine, but so do the conventional ones.
 
I put Alphabeams in and couldn't be happier.
 
mkosmo said:
Which one did you go with? I'm trying to make my LED landing light decision.
Click to expand...

The Whelen Parmetheus PAR46. Rumor has it that the Whelen PAR-46 for automotive use is the exact same unit as the Parmetheus, minus the TSO approval, but I'd NEVER dream of putting a non-FAA approved part in my airplane....
 
We put in a LED landing light on our Grumman Tiger, and it's great... we were hitting our limit on our amps before, and now, it's perfect. Bright and cool both.

One very good investment.
 
I put Whelen LED landing and taxi lights on my 182. Direct drop-in replacements for the incandescent bulbs. They're quite expensive but they also don't burn out (their claim is 5000 hours) even if you leave them on a lot.

I fly with them on in crowded airspace now and don't worry about it.

I put them on at the beginning of the summer and I don't think I have actually flown with them at night yet. But they are bright as hell during the day so they should be fantastic at night.
 
I got a fantastic deal on a Whelen at the Light Sport Expo last January. Being Experimental, it was a plug and play replacement for my 4509.

Results:

15065545860_f71b20622b_c.jpg


If anything, in real life the difference was even more dramatic.

The charging system on the ROTAX 912 was tapped enough so as to limit the 4509 to 5 minutes. Now the landing light goes on after engine start and stays on until shutdown.
 
FastEddieB said:
I got a fantastic deal on a Whelen at the Light Sport Expo last January. Being Experimental, it was a plug and play replacement for my 4509.

Results:

15065545860_f71b20622b_c.jpg


If anything, in real life the difference was even more dramatic.

The charging system on the ROTAX 912 was tapped enough so as to limit the 4509 to 5 minutes. Now the landing light goes on after engine start and stays on until shutdown.
Click to expand...

How long before the box caught fire? :D
 
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