Landing Light Performance

[VickersPilot]

I saw the performance of Matt Guthmiller’s Bonanza landing light in one of his videos. It clearly illuminated the apron/taxiway. I find it hard to see the yellow line in front of the aircraft at night in my ‘62.

Is this normal or do I have an issue? Is a better solution available?

[bdbogle]

Just curious if you got any feedback? I too have been flying my DA42 that I got back in September more at night with the time change and the taxi light barely shows anything and adding the landing light puts out enough light to see maybe 15-20ft further out. I did find that if I dimmed everything inside, it assisted a little...but not much. So awesome LEDs would be great! Probably not a big enough install base to have the likes of Whelen to make a good set.

[dmloftus]

Love the Whelens on my DA40!

[photoSteveZ]

Just curious if you got any feedback? I too have been flying my DA42 that I got back in September more at night with the time change and the taxi light barely shows anything and adding the landing light puts out enough light to see maybe 15-20ft further out. I did find that if I dimmed everything inside, it assisted a little...but not much. So awesome LEDs would be great! Probably not a big enough install base to have the likes of Whelen to make a good set.

I concur: a couple of weeks ago I shot some pre-dawn video from my 62 with a wingtip mounted GoPro. It revealed that the taxi light illuminates the ground immediately *behind* the nose wheel, which is worse than useless from the pilot’s POV. The landing light puts most of its output on the ground about 30-50 feet in front of the nose.

[Boatguy]

I concur: a couple of weeks ago I shot some pre-dawn video from my 62 with a wingtip mounted GoPro. It revealed that the taxi light illuminates the ground immediately *behind* the nose wheel, which is worse than useless from the pilot’s POV. The landing light puts most of its output on the ground about 30-50 feet in front of the nose.

Wow! That is a great example of really poor lighting. Unfortunately it seems like a design flaw not easily corrected. Any obvious way that could be improved?

[VickersPilot]

As a reference point: I find the DA62 light at night effectively unusable and difficult to navigate the airport environment.

I am surprised it passed certification.

[MikeMeadows]

Both the landing and taxiway lights for the 42 and 62 are made by a company called XeVision, in Ogden, UT. I spoke to their customer support and sales person today.

The taxi and landing lights are only 35 watts and only output 3200 lumens. The ballasts that drive these HID lights are 35 watts. They do have a 50 watt ballast available that will drive the exiting bulbs (no bulb change needed). This will increase the light output to 5300 lumens a 65% increase. 50W ballasts are available from XeVision for about $295 each. They will probably give a $50 refund upon return of the old ballast.

They have an STC on their website that was used for a DA42.https://www.xevision.com/FAA337/337-N33 ... r-DA42.pdf

No change in wiring, no change in circuit breakers is required.

Mike Meadows
mikemeadows at sbcglobal dot net
Houston, TX

Gold Seal Instructor
CFI, CFII, MEI
ATP Single and Multi Land
BGI, AGI, IGI
DA42 and DA62 Insurance Approved Instructor

[XeVision]

This is Dan Blumel from XeVision, we manufacturer the HID landing and taxi lighting systems DA42/62 and 50RG for Diamond Austria and Canada in Ogden, Utah.
www.XeVision.com
It seems your taxi lights must be aimed poorly, with so much light on the ground under the aircraft. I would assume the aim is somewhat adjustable.
We have an upgrade of a higher power ballast 50 watts instead of the stock 35 watt chosen by Diamond. We have offered it to them in the past, but for whatever reason they have stuck with the 35W. The 50 watt systems produce 65% more lumens output and is a simple ballast swap for these aircraft. The ballast controls bulb wattage, not the bulb like with incandescent or halogen technology. Only a minor modification is required to make this change.
There is an existing 337 for this change, a downloadable pdf here : https://www.xevision.com/hid_337.html scroll to find the DA42 and click the link for the sample downloadable pdf 337.

Another note, HID bulb output does degrade over time, so it could be on some well used aircraft the bulbs are down to 60% output and should be replaced to regain the original output.
A side note, many DA40s have been converted from Halogen to 50 watt HID in the past, we have an STC for that. Many members here would be familiar with that conversion. We have done close to 100 of them.
We do have an Ultra High Powered LED on the market now, but it's a round form factor Par-36 (4.5 inches diameter) it is our intention to develop a rectangular LED shape for Diamond as well for a replacement. The problem with the majority of LED's currently on the market, they all dim dramatically to 1/2 output or less after 5-10 minutes of use. This is not the case with our technology because we utilize active cooling.
I can provide certified optical test Lab based graphs to demonstrate this, but can't seem to determine how to upload some photos here. Perhaps I could email them to someone here and they could upload.
Thanks, Dan
XeVision

[XeVision]

I saw the performance of Matt Guthmiller’s Bonanza landing light in one of his videos. It clearly illuminated the apron/taxiway. I find it hard to see the yellow line in front of the aircraft at night in my ‘62.

Matt's airplane has an LED on the nose gear and an HID in the cowling for landing.

[Rich]

The DA40's were once delivered with laughably feeble Halogen lamps. There wasn't a problem with aiming, just the inadequacy of the light output. Taxiing around unlit or reflector-only taxiways/ramps was a nail-biting exercise. Installation of the XeVision system (many years ago) cured this problem completely. I have the 35W units and they are fine.