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Are landing lights worthwhile?

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Battson

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2012
Messages
610
Location
New Zealand
Hey homebuilders,

So it's come time for me to decide about landing lights. The heart of my question is, are they actually useful for a VFR pilot who's landing in poor light conditions (twilight), in case a VFR pilot gets caught out later than planned?

We've postponed the idea of making an IFR capable Bearhawk. Most of our flying is fair weather and well inside daylight hours, or underneath bad weather in daylight.... But I wonder if landing lights might be worth it for that one time when you get caught out by (insert unexpected factor here) and are forced to land later in the day, during twilight or God forbit after dark. I dont really have any experience of that kind of thing, so I wondered if anyone how does could chip-in with 2c?

Obviously the cons of "just installing them anyway" are additional cost, more weight, increased complexity, and possibly weatherproofness issues longer term (would need to cut into the leading edge to install them, no room in the cowl). Also access is limited around the leading edge for maintenance.

We dont expect to install any strobes / navigation lights at first. We might come back later and put combined units in the wing tips, if we decide we want them.
 
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