PCL Radio Modification

labbadabba

labbadabba

Pattern Altitude
Joined
Aug 12, 2014
Messages
2,391
Location
Lawrence, KS
Display Name
labbadabba
Home Airfield
KIXD, KLWC
Got an e-mail from the aircraft manager for the Wing that one of our 172s has been taken offline for a radio modification. I inquired what was being done he said it was a "free modification so we can have pilot-controlled lighting." I presume it's specific to the home base because I've flown that plane before to uncontrolled fields at night.

I was always under the impression that PCL worked simply by breaking squawk a set number of times on the CTAF freq. Are there some airports that need a specifically modified radio to turn on the lights?
 
Never heard of such things. It's pretty easy to build a "click up" controller for lights and other functions. I've never seen anything else.
Note that in some bizarre cases the PCL is not the CTAF.
 
Did he mean pilot controlled lighting inside the radio? IOW radio's backlighting?

Many of them never get hooked up to a dimmer which just seems lazy in most cases.
 
bnt83 said:
Did he mean pilot controlled lighting inside the radio? IOW radio's backlighting?

Many of them never get hooked up to a dimmer which just seems lazy in most cases.
Click to expand...
I bet this is the answer.
 
cheap weenie said:
I bet this is the answer.
Click to expand...

Nope, his full quote is:

"This is a free modification so we can have pilot controlled lighting. You cannot turn on airport lights at night."

I'm totally baffled by this. I mean, they guy is a pilot as well as the aircraft manager. I've flown that plane at night. I have no clue what he's talking about.
 
labbadabba said:
Nope, his full quote is:

"This is a free modification so we can have pilot controlled lighting. You cannot turn on airport lights at night."

I'm totally baffled by this. I mean, they guy is a pilot as well as the aircraft manager. I've flown that plane at night. I have no clue what he's talking about.
Click to expand...

That is really weird. Totally illogical to think that you need special in-aircraft controls to turn on the airport lighting. How would anyone but his planes be able to use it? I look forward to hearing what it turns out to be.
 
Maybe it is for the top secret dark site airfields that FEMA has set up so the chemtrail dispensing planes can land and reload.
 
If it really is some sort of mod to add a button for a tone generator or similar to make PCL available only to a chosen few, I'd be crawling up whatever bureaucrat's backside that made that horrible anti-safety decision to lock out other users, if the thing was purchased with tax dollars.
 
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