FAA Encourages The Use Of Landing Lights For Increased Visibility
Landing lights are not only useful for taxi, takeoffs, and landings, but also provide a means by which airplanes can be seen by other pilots. To enhance the “see and avoid” concept, the FAA encourages pilots to turn on their landing lights when operating within 10 miles of an airport and below 10,000 feet. This also applies when operating both at night and during the day in conditions of reduced visibility.
According to the FAA, nearly all midair collisions occur during daylight and more than half take place in visual conditions with either VFR or instrument-rated pilots at the helm. Part of the reason is because it takes a minimum of 10 seconds, for a pilot to spot traffic, identify it, realize it is a collision threat, react, and have the aircraft respond. This is why the development of new technologies in aircraft lighting is so important.
For 75 years, pilots and aircraft manufacturers have had few lighting options with limited capabilities – until recently that is.
With the focus on key metrics like performance, efficiency, and reliability, AeroLEDs revolutionary LED landing and navigational lighting products are designed for some of the most extreme operating conditions on the planet and far-exceed the performance of legacy lighting systems.
AeroLEDs SunSpot series Landing Lights can be seen from up to 30 miles away, providing pilots plenty of time to react.
Voted Best LED Landing Light by Aviation Consumer, they also consume less power than legacy incandescent bulbs, outperform competitive LED’s, and are vibration and shock resistant making them unaffected by adverse environmental conditions.
AeroLEDs’ newest addition to this highly sought-after line, the SunSpot 46- 4522 14v power 140w LED Landing Light, sets the standard for performance with 15,400 Lumens and 180,000 Candela, making it a premier choice for daylight operations as well.
This light can be left on in all phases of flight as it draws 40 percent less power, significantly reducing the electrical load on the airplane’s battery and alternator system. It also maintains its full light output even at low engine RPM, which is critical for landing configuration. The SunSpot 46-4522 will also be available with integrated pulse providing optimum visibility during extreme operating conditions and negating the need and extra weight of external pulse light boxes.
SunSpot is rated for 30,000 MTBF and is ideal for use in Experimental, Certified, Commercial, ARFF, and Military aircraft. For more information, visit AeroLED’s website at aeroleds.com.
