For owners who worry about mid-air collisions, its no comfort to be told that the statistical risk of a mid-air is low. Its barely out of the noise level as a cause of accidents. Nonetheless, many who worry about mid-airs forget one simple thing that might improve the odds of being seen and avoided: turning on landing and taxi lights.
From certain angles and in the right lighting conditions, illuminated landing lights dramatically improve conspicuity. Its widely accepted that pulsing lights of some kind-either landing lights or strobes-improve the chances of being seen, especially in low light or low contrast conditions. And the more lights you can pulse, the better.
Thats the idea behind PreciseFlights Pulselite system, a device that pulses one or more landing lights, either together or in alternating sequence. The system has been on the market for years, so we decided to take a fresh look at how it works and to answer a persistent question: Do Pulselites really make landing light bulbs last longer? (Short answer: Yes, they certainly do.)
Weve had Pulselites in three of our aircraft and have considered them to be relatively inexpensive safety gear. PreciseFlight loaned us the latest iteration of the Pulselite for bench evaluation. Although there’s competition in the field from AvTeks Pulsar system, the company refused to loan or sell us their product for evaluation. AvTek owner Mike Peters told us that if we reviewed the Pulsar favorably, hed “have a problem” because he couldnt deliver many units. Similarly, he said he would also have a problem if we found fault with it. we’ll try to obtain a Pulsar in the future to shine some light into this dark corner.
Two ModelsMeanwhile, PreciseFlight offers two models for light aircraft, the 1210, which channels two lamps at 125 watts each, or one 250-watt lamp ($295) and the Starlight 3060, which channels two 500-watt lamps for $1395. The Startlight has another neat trick: It interfaces with TCAS and automatically pulses the landing lights when a traffic advisory is active. PreciseFlight also sells commercial duty pulsers to the airline and bizjet trade.
Since the 1210 is nothing more than a controllable switching circuit, there’s really not much to it. The circuitry is contained in a small chassis thats mounted to a substantial heat sink that doubles as a mounting plate. The device is intended for installation inside the cabin, not where it will be exposed to weather.
The STC package is complete with all of the paperwork and nicely detailed drawings for most of the airframes the system is approved for. (Thats just about everything, according to the fat pile of paper that comes with each Pulselite.)
Instructions are complete and lucid and installation requires between four and six hours, according to PreciseFlight. The device can be wired to flash two lamps simultaneously or alternately and the pulse rate can be selected at 45 or 90 pulses. It requires the installation of a single switch that turns pulsing on and off. The pulse rate can be hardwired or selectable, with an additional switch.When the landing light is turned on, it routes power directly to the bulb.
Testing ItWe know the pulsing action works and that it improves conspicuity. For example of that, check out the video clips on PreciseFlights Web site (www.preciseflight.com/). We were curious to see if the Pulselite could, as claimed, extend the life of the typical landing light.