Aircraft Lighting

You will find a great need for a variety of aircraft lighting for your gyroplane. Some lighting may be required by regulations and others may be optional or dependant upon whether you fly at night or not.

This section is broken down into three main categories, interior, exterior and auxillary lighting. Interior lighting concerns instrument lighting. Exterior lighting is further divided into position and strobe lights. Auxillary lighting covers cabin and emergency lighting as well as annunciators.

Landing and taxi lights. No matter if you plan on flying at night or not it is recommended to at least install a landing light for collision avoidance purposes, if your gyroplane can accomodate it. Think of your autogiro as a motorcycle on the road and you will understand the logic of installing a landing light. Not everyone is going to be on the look out for a motorcycle and neither is a pilot necessarily going to be looking for a gyroplane out there in the wild blue.

With all the expensive gadgets out there for aircraft seperation and avoidance, why is a landing light not a requirement? I have seen many types of lights used as landing and taxi lights so I would suggest two things. First see what AC 43.13-1 has in it for aircraft lighting as a place to start. Second pick up a couple books on homebuilt or kitplane construction such as Tony Bingelas' books. There are many useful construction tips to include lighting and electrical systems.

Think about being seen and help prevent a potential hazard.

Speaking of potential hazard, lamps or light bulbs used in landing and taxi lights can draw a considerable amount of amperage. Be sure that you will have enough available electrical power not only for your landing light but your whole electrical system. This can be accomplished by making a power loading chart. By doing your homework ahead of time you can ensure you will not put too great of a load on your electrical system. Check out what your system can handle, research your options and what others have done and what works. Then go shopping to make you and your ship as safe as possible.

With higher amperage circuits you will need heavier gauge wire and a circuit breaker and of course a properly rated switch to install your landing light. Before you send in that order you might want to check out your other lighting options and place a single order or two to save on shipping charges. See Interior Lighting, Exterior Lighting, or Auxillary Lighting.

Aircraft Exterior Lighting

Aircraft Position Lights

Aircraft Strobe Lights

Aircraft Interior Lighting

Aircraft Auxillary Lighting

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