MOD Increasing inflight visibility (better daytime lighting)

[ve6yeq]

This winter season, I have migrated from the northeast (Toronto, Canada) to the southeast (Tampa Bay, Florida), and it has been great to have many more VFR days and no need to worry about engine pre-heat and freezing levels. However, there are lots and lots of small grey-white planes hiding in the haze and clouds, and the number of birds enjoying the thermals at 1100 AGL is huge here. Although my rate of spotting other aircraft is not very high, ADS-B gives me a chance, but the birds are in almost every thermal, which are everywhere in the afternoons, other than over large bodies of water.

So I would like to become as visible in flight as I can to all these other flying "objects". To this end, I have been looking at the “strobe” mode of the XeVision XeTREME lights over the “wig-wag” of my current wing lights.

Issues that I see with an upgrade:

• Physical - the XeTREME lights are much deeper than the current lights. From what I remember of the build and the build manuals, there should be enough space behind the current mounting plane of the carbon fibre. Also, I have seen online installations of the XeTREME lights where an adaptor plate was fashioned to move the light unit slightly forward.
• Electrical Power - the XeTREME lights are 100 W continuous, which is more than the current 20 AWG wiring can handle after upgrading the 2 circuit breakers (lights and aux bus). So there appear to be two possible solutions:
  • To “double up” the wing wiring where both 20 AWG wires are used in parallel (creating ~17 AWG) for positive, and the wing spar is used as ground. As the wing spar has a large cross-section, the induced magnetic field should be very small and away from the magnetometer.
  • Add a 12 Vdc to 24 Vdc converter (~240W) to boost the voltage and halve the current in the wing wiring. This will require a small box (many are available online).
• Electrical Noise - as the switching rate of the “strobes” will be much faster than the wig-wag, it might be wise to add some capacitance (e.g. an alternator filter cap) behind each light on the wing to reduce power spikes.

Finally, my EX-3 currently has a "landing" light in one wing and a "taxi" light in the other. On this forum and others, the high deck angle of a Carbon Cub with extended gear and ABWs appears to make the wing-mounted "taxi" light much less effective, so I am leaning towards installing "landing" lights in both wings. I am a majority day VFR pilot, so nighttime performance is not a primary concern at present, and if it ever is, then I can install a dedicated taxi light.

Any comments on this project?

 

[Neal]

I upgraded the wing lights from the Parmetheus Plus (2014 edition WAT) to G3's (modern edition) and love them. The concern was the gauge of the wire run and whether or not it could support the 1.4 to 3.8 AMP draw. I concluded after referencing AC 43 it was sufficient gauge but initially I had RF interference which turned out to be presumably a bad light (voltage regulator?) and WAT replaced them. The point is you have to compare the AMP draw and quite frankly at some point the overall loads.

I suggest going with 2 x G3 in the wing (non-taxi) and add a TAXI light (or lights) and you can have all 4 on at once for max visibility which is what I do when in concerning higher traffic (fly-in madness) conditions. As you're adding new lights you can setup a flash pattern if you choose.

The question is how effective are lights with birds which some say is the reason for the wig-wag. High humidity, hazy weather like in Florida and even here in VA is certainly higher risk and obviously at times of the year in Florida GA is concentrated in the mornings.

I flew A-10's in an exercise in Panama. Talk about birds, and BIG birds! We even had one incident where a bird landed on the cowl in the arming area prior to takeoff and fell into the engine at idle. You had to dodge birds after takeoff and it was high risk, the only difference is the tax payer paid for my plane vs me. Birds are my top fear even here in VA just for having to deal with damage, etc. This is why often I won't fly low as I could just to get out of the bird layer but then there are the high altitude ones that just can't seem to stay where they should