"New" airport lighting annoying? (taxiways)

[Mesabi Miner]

Posted this in the "Safety" Forum as well, but wanted to put it here to get more visibility.

Has anyone noticed the "new" type of taxiway lights being installed at airports recently? (west side of KDTW and all of KBMI for example) They seem to be either of the LED or flourescent type. Does anyone else find them distracting? To me, they seem to leave a "trail" behind them as I move my eyes and I find them annoying. I only hope they don't replace the incandescent lights on the runway with this new type. Comments?

MM

 

[Airboss]

Its sad when you need to wear sunglasses at night because the taxiway lights are too bright. They keep installing them all over ATL. It sucks.

 

[wmuflyguy]

CVG has them over by the new runway. Sometimes the taxiway is brighter than the runway.

 

[613ka]

Go to STL... the new runway and taxiway lights look brighter than the damn Las Vegas Strip!!!

 

[pilotdiscretion]

The new lights are LED. They last longer and are more visible. There has been extensive research into these lights in the US and Europe with little down side. The effect of seeing tracers as you go by them is a new one.

When these lights are installed by airport mx crews they seem to be having problems with the wiring and controls. Because the lights end up on the same circuit as the older lights the intensities never match and the new LED lights end up brighter. If you're an ALPA pilot contact one of your union safety reps who can contact the local ALPA airport rep and lobby the airport to make fixing the intensities a priority. If you're not ALPA you should consider investing millions of your own money into a national aviation safety organization and not flying 11 in one day.

 

[DrewBlows]

If you're not ALPA you should consider investing millions of your own money into a national aviation safety organization and not flying 11 in one day.

lol

...

 

[BOHICAgain]

At DTW we asked ground what was up with the taxi lights. His response is that the entire airport was changing to the new LED and they have to wait till all the lights are LED to be able to turn down the the lights because if they tun them down now all of the other lights will be barely visible..

 

[Turtlesfly]

I'm always looking away to a sign or something while taxiing to make sure that my vision isn't going bad -- I always see those new lights and they look so blurry and fuzzy I feel like I'm losing my vision - but they just have a funny prism that makes them look that way - the old ones actually looked like a light.

 

[Mesabi Miner]

That's what I'm talkin' about Turtle. Not cool in my book, but I guess we're all going to have to live with it.

 

[socrates1]

To me, they seem to leave a "trail" behind them as I move my eyes and I find them annoying.

Hey Masabi Miner, stay off the LSD!! That might help!!