LED Nav lights / strobe nav lights

[Pacerfgoe]

This is a new product Iv'e read about in our COPA paper (Canadian owners & Pilots Association). Has an incredibly low power draw, and also comes with the option of steady nav lights or by selecting the nav switch off then on again within three seconds you now have strobe mode.
No mods need to be done to the aircraft.....just change out the bulbs.
I haven't seen them myself, but have talked to a friend that has them, and he says they are very bright, and once in strobe mode you can't look at them directly without being blinded.
$100 will outfit yor aircraft. I think thats a very cheap safety item for those that don't have strobes already.....

Here is a link to ebay
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aircraft-Win...678910?vxp=mtr

[moe2goe]

That's a very neat idea, I may have to check it out. Thanks, Moe

[rocket]

So if I am reading this correctly you turn the power to the nav light on for steady and then turn it off and then on again within a certain time frame and en you get flashing?

R

[bndbelle]

I think LED's are the way to go anytime possible. They draw less power and are very bright. Has anyone here tried these ?

[Pacerfgoe]

So if I am reading this correctly you turn the power to the nav light on for steady and then turn it off and then on again within a certain time frame and en you get flashing?

R

Yep thats how it works......it would be flashing red/green/white depending on location

[gliderman]

Deep depression heavy sigh.... I just replaced my nav lights with LEDs from aircraft spruce...

they work very well

[ysifly2]

I know someone who has just recently installed them (I haven't seen them at night... only in his hangar)... though is still trying to figure out the 'paperwork' side of things. I believe the gentleman that sells (& manufactures?) these is located in Canada. Not sure what the regulations are in Canada for the installation, but I thought I read in the FAR that for the FAA, the navigation (position) lights and anti-collision (strobe) lights are to have separate wires / circuits. Obviously... that is a challenge for some airplanes, hence the simplicity and improvement of these LEDs "bulbs".

Also... not sure if there is a requirement that the position lights are to "glow" 100% of the time? Though, I challenge anyone to look at these replacement bulbs in the strobe mode and tell if the also have a steady on in-between the flashes
or if there is a requirement that the strobes lights be white? when you replace the position lights with these LED bulbs... you in effect have a "color" strobe.


I would like to install them as well... because I think they would be a great improvement over the position lights and I wouldn't have to try and run a second wire. I plan to work on a 337 write-up and "sell" it to my A&P/IA... but would love to hear of anyone else who has installed these and how they went about it on the paperwork side (i.e. logbook, 337, etc..)


Bryan

[Gilbert Pierce]

There is no FAA/PMA or TSO on light bulbs to my knowledge. My Clipper has the same bulbs in the nav lights that older cars use.

Attached is an article from AVWEB on the issue. Judge for youself.

By Paul
Bertorelli

I know by firsthand experience that AVweb finds its way
into the upper reaches of the FAA's HQ at 800 Independence Avenue in Washington.
What I don't know is this: Do the gentle people inhabiting FAA's mahogany row
have a clue of how their lower minions are carrying out their jobs? Do they have
even the vaguest control over the far flung offices? Do they even care? Would
they be surprised to know that the FAA's actions are sometimes counter safety?

Here's where I'm going with this. For Aviation Consumer,
I've been doing some extensive research on LED lighting, specifically landing
lights. This is, by the way, fabulous technology. It's improving in leaps and
bounds, it's getting ever cheaper and is becoming a significant market force in
the general lighting market. Yet the FAA has done its level best to keep these
benefits from trickling down to aviation.

Here's how: All of the manufacturers of these products have
approached the FAA for some kind of approval, even though it's not clear that
any is needed. The FARs are vague on the subject, requiring only that bulbs have
enough light for night operations and not present a fire hazard. That's it. The
venerable GE 4509 bulb—the gold standard for landing lights—carries no TSO or
PMA of any kind. It's just a bulb.

Yet, say the makers of LEDs, they are often asked by regional FAA
ACO offices to conduct a battery of tests on LED products to prove…to prove
what? A reading of the FARs would suggest all they need to prove is that the
bulb generates sufficient light and isn't a fire hazard. Even basic common sense
knowledge of LEDs can answer these questions without requiring expensive tests,
which one manufacturer told me ran to high five figures — and it still
doesn't have the approval.

Another said its ACO insisted that the LED behave just like a
4509--same too-narrow asymmetric beam width and even the same mounting notch in
the rim (wholly unnecessary). When I asked if this didn't dumb down potentially
improved technology to the limitations of the old, I was told that...why yes, it
does. That the product is still better than the 4509 is a testament to LED
technology.

Yet another company told me its ACO refused to approve a LED bulb,
refused to explain how such a product could be tested and approved and then said
it was too busy to take on the project anyway. This has forced some companies to
shop for ACOs that have a more realistic approach to the FAA's oversight and
safety role. What that involves is an ACO culture that lucidly balances benefit
against risk. In other words, any fool with a lick of sense would know that LEDs
are a huge improvement over failure-prone incandescent bulbs and the risk of
them causing any harm to the aircraft is too trivial to worry about.

It's probably not unreasonable to ask a manufacturer to do simple
RFI trials. But even that might be overkill. At the FSDO level, some offices
routinely approve Form 337 requests (good for them) for LED installs while
others refuse, for no imaginable reason other than they can.

Where the FAA's actions turn strikingly counter safety is that if
more LEDs were out there, pilots would tend to leave them on constantly, thus
improving conspicuity and reducing the risk of mid-airs. Moreover, LEDs can
easily be configured as always-on flashers—some of the products out there do
that. Yet manufacturers have been reluctant to pursue the flasher approach
because it complicates an already Byzantine—and entirely unnecessary—approval
process. So the bottom line is, thanks to FAA actions, valuable safety
technology is kept from the market for no particular reason other than
bureaucratic intransigence. Even when it does make it to market, it is more
expensive by dint of the make-work testing.

And by the way, if I wanted one of these LEDs for a certified
airplane—and I do—I'd simply install it, approval or not. My interpretation of
the FARs indicates I'm in compliance if the lamp provides sufficient light and
doesn't present a fire hazard. I deem myself smart enough to determine both.
Furthermore, since there's no such thing as an approved landing light bulb
anyway, I'm miles away from the stench of unapproved parts. Like I said, common
sense. There are little capillaries of it in the FAA, but the veins run dark
with baffling illogic and flawed thinking.

[MN_flyer1]

Sounds like shoulder harness logic to me. Makes sense.

[smcnutt]

Deep depression heavy sigh.... I just replaced my nav lights with LEDs from aircraft spruce...

they work very well

Did you have to replace the red/green lenses with clear lenses or did you just use what you had?