RST Engineering wrote:
You are correct, of course, but let's do the math. Let's figure a 3000'
long strip with runway and taxiway lights every 200' along the edge. That's
15 lights times 4 (two runway, two taxiway) or 60 lights. Throw in another
20 lights for end lights and other miscellaneous lights for a total of 80
lights times 100 watts a bulb. That's 8000 watts or 8 kw. Fifteen minutes
is a quarter of an hour, so you burn 8/4 or 2kwh in that period of time.
Even in the prime daytime a kwh goes for about 15 cents, so you have
"wasted" 30 cents.

I give you that waste is waste, but 30 cents isn't a king's ransom either.

True, but let's continue on. Let's say 4 pilots an evening do that.
This is 1460 activations a year unnecessarily or $438 per year. Not a
King's ransom to be sure, but that would buy the gas to mow most
airports for a season or two.

And it is completely wasteful, which is the crux of my objection. And
when you factor in the shortening of bulb life and the labor to replace
bulbs, I'm guessing you at least double the cost of the electricity used.

And when I activated the lights at ELM a few months ago when I arrived
back at 12:15 AM after the tower closed, I got a LOT more than 80
lights. :-) Then again, I was landing so I considered that a necessary
activation. It was pretty funny when I was handed off to approach (this
was an IFR flight) at 11:58 PM and his fist and last transmission to me
was to give me the current weather, wish me a safe landing and say he
was closing the tower!

Matt