3. Landing at night with that single GE 4509 shining out front is a
drag. Taxiing at a dark, unfamiliar airport is REALLY a drag.
huh? Landing at night with the single 4509 is just fine. And taxing
at night isn't hard at all.
I guess everything is relative, but I found the landing light on a
Cherokee -- all Cherokees, not just 140s -- to be a joke. It's like
landing with a flashlight -- which really isn't too bad, but...
What IS bad (at our airport, especially, which has 50-year-old
reflectors instead of lights on the taxiways) is taxiing. That little
100 watt bulb out front (with its whopping 25 hour lifespan) is a
single point of failure that just, well, sucks. It doesn't light up
diddly squat, and if you don't know where you're going, a dark airport
is REALLY dark.
The solution is wing landing lights, which I've added to our Cherokee.
Put a couple of Q4509s out there and the taxiways look like broad
daylight -- and you look like a DC-9 on final approach...
:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"