Limiting use of Pilot Controlled Lighting

Having just crossed the border, and visited a few non-towered airports
in the US, I'm afraid I may have done some injustice by using the PCL
pilot controlled lighting a bit too much. Knowing the somewhat
precarious financial state of those airports, and the electricity hog
the lights can be, I'm wondering if its use is required at all. Can
the USA procedures experts here please comment on the following?

1. Any legal requirement to use them during the day (that is, any
FAR)? Is it an AIM recommended procedure?
2. Will 3 clicks ALWAYS turn off the REILs or approach lights?
Will 3 clicks sometimes turn off the runway lights, and if so, any way
to know this in advance?
3. Why not have an ability to turn them all off, runway lights
and approach/REILs?

Just trying to help save Uncle Sam some $

Stan

wrote:
Having just crossed the border, and visited a few non-towered airports
in the US, I'm afraid I may have done some injustice by using the PCL
pilot controlled lighting a bit too much. Knowing the somewhat
precarious financial state of those airports, and the electricity hog
the lights can be, I'm wondering if its use is required at all. Can
the USA procedures experts here please comment on the following?

1. Any legal requirement to use them during the day (that is, any
FAR)? Is it an AIM recommended procedure?
2. Will 3 clicks ALWAYS turn off the REILs or approach lights?
Will 3 clicks sometimes turn off the runway lights, and if so, any way
to know this in advance?
3. Why not have an ability to turn them all off, runway lights
and approach/REILs?

Just trying to help save Uncle Sam some $

Stan

The only reference to turning things off in the AIM is the runway end
identifier lights. Those will sometimes shut off with 3 or 5 clicks,
depending on the type. Everything else should be on with either 3, 5
or 7 clicks.

Now I flew into a private strip a while back. They had their lights
set up to shut off with 8 clicks, I think (maybe it was 9). But then
Uncle Sam wasn't paying for those lights.

I suppose most places don't have a shut-off feature so that you can't
turn the lights off while someone else is trying to land or take off.
That would be a safety problem.

I don't know that there is a legal requirement to turn on
pilot-controlled lights at all. I've heard of yahoos landing on unlit
runways at night. I guess that's illegal in the "careless and
reckless" sense (and you'd waste much more money by crashing and taking
out the lights that you didn't bother to turn on). But during the day
there is certainly no requirement.

I wouldn't bother trying to save Uncle Sam a bit more money. PCL
systems already do that for you. The extra 15 minutes that they stay
on is nothing compared to being on all night long if they weren't pilot
controlled to begin with.

On Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:19:10 GMT, wrote:

Having just crossed the border, and visited a few non-towered airports
in the US, I'm afraid I may have done some injustice by using the PCL
pilot controlled lighting a bit too much. Knowing the somewhat
precarious financial state of those airports, and the electricity hog
the lights can be, I'm wondering if its use is required at all. Can
the USA procedures experts here please comment on the following?

1. Any legal requirement to use them during the day (that is, any
FAR)?
No

Is it an AIM recommended procedure?
No

2. Will 3 clicks ALWAYS turn off the REILs or approach lights?
Will 3 clicks sometimes turn off the runway lights, and if so, any way
to know this in advance?
I don't know. But the runway lights that you can turn on will turn
themselves off after a preset length of time which I don't recall, but is
less than ten minutes.

3. Why not have an ability to turn them all off, runway lights
and approach/REILs?
The timer does that.

Just trying to help save Uncle Sam some $
It'll be the airport owner, and not Uncle Sam, who is paying for
the lights. That is generally a municipality and yes, they can certainly
benefit from saving the money. But since they'll go off with a timer
anyway, I'm not sure if the savings would be appreciable.


Ron (EPM) (N5843Q, Mooney M20E) (CP, ASEL, ASES, IA)

Ron Rosenfeld wrote:
On Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:19:10 GMT, wrote:


Having just crossed the border, and visited a few non-towered airports
in the US, I'm afraid I may have done some injustice by using the PCL
pilot controlled lighting a bit too much. Knowing the somewhat
precarious financial state of those airports, and the electricity hog
the lights can be, I'm wondering if its use is required at all. Can
the USA procedures experts here please comment on the following?

1. Any legal requirement to use them during the day (that is, any
FAR)?

No


Is it an AIM recommended procedure?

No


2. Will 3 clicks ALWAYS turn off the REILs or approach lights?
Will 3 clicks sometimes turn off the runway lights, and if so, any way
to know this in advance?

I don't know. But the runway lights that you can turn on will turn
themselves off after a preset length of time which I don't recall, but is
less than ten minutes.


3. Why not have an ability to turn them all off, runway lights
and approach/REILs?

The timer does that.

Just trying to help save Uncle Sam some $

It'll be the airport owner, and not Uncle Sam, who is paying for
the lights. That is generally a municipality and yes, they can certainly
benefit from saving the money. But since they'll go off with a timer
anyway, I'm not sure if the savings would be appreciable.


Ron (EPM) (N5843Q, Mooney M20E) (CP, ASEL, ASES, IA)
and I don't think you could turn them on during the day if you wanted
to. The ones I'm familiar with have sensors tied to them to not turn on
during daylight hours. I'm not sure how they deal with fog but I would
bet it would not be too hard to set the sensor to not trip on if the
ambient light exceed some value where the runways would not benefit you
in the fog.

I'm not aware of any PCL that operate during the day. Usually the
system is disabled during daylight hours.
-Robert

On Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:19:10 GMT, wrote:

Having just crossed the border, and visited a few non-towered airports
in the US, I'm afraid I may have done some injustice by using the PCL
pilot controlled lighting a bit too much. Knowing the somewhat
precarious financial state of those airports, and the electricity hog
the lights can be, I'm wondering if its use is required at all. Can
the USA procedures experts here please comment on the following?

1. Any legal requirement to use them during the day (that is, any
FAR)? Is it an AIM recommended procedure?

Most, but not all leave that feature turned off during the day.

2. Will 3 clicks ALWAYS turn off the REILs or approach lights?
Will 3 clicks sometimes turn off the runway lights, and if so, any way
to know this in advance?

Always? Check the AFD, but it works for most.

3. Why not have an ability to turn them all off, runway lights
and approach/REILs?

They are supposed to turn themselves off after 5 minutes, but I
supposed not all are set up that way. When I was a student the
instructors had me hit the runways lights coming into the pattern and
then again on base or final. That was to prevent them timing out at an
inopportune time.

As to turning them all off, they shoudl take care of that by
themselves. I find the REILS blind me. I did use the REILs to find
an airport in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Even with the runway
lights on, that place was darn near invisible set down into the woods.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


Just trying to help save Uncle Sam some $

Stan

wrote in message
...
Having just crossed the border, and visited a few non-towered airports
in the US, I'm afraid I may have done some injustice by using the PCL
pilot controlled lighting a bit too much. Knowing the somewhat
precarious financial state of those airports, and the electricity hog
the lights can be, I'm wondering if its use is required at all. Can
the USA procedures experts here please comment on the following?

1. Any legal requirement to use them during the day (that is, any
FAR)? Is it an AIM recommended procedure?
2. Will 3 clicks ALWAYS turn off the REILs or approach lights?
Will 3 clicks sometimes turn off the runway lights, and if so, any way
to know this in advance?
3. Why not have an ability to turn them all off, runway lights
and approach/REILs?

Just trying to help save Uncle Sam some $

Stan



They turn themselves off based on a timer. I realized that the ones in
Immokale, FL stay on long enough to land, taxi back, take off, and come back
around to short final before they blink off.

I think there could be problems if they had a "click to turn off" feature.
Imagine the scenario where you "click off" as you pull into your parking
spot and shut down the airplane. Get out of the plane and see that they are
on, thinking that you forgot you reach back in, fire up the radio, and click
them off, not knowing that someone turned them back on behind you, and they
are now touching down as you turn the lights back off.

Robert M. Gary wrote:
I'm not aware of any PCL that operate during the day. Usually the
system is disabled during daylight hours.
-Robert

I have used PCL during the day in reduced visibility. I could not have
seen the runway without it. Could it be that only airports with
instrument approaches have 24-hr PCL?

On 15 Jun 2006 23:27:01 -0700, "Robert M. Gary" wrote:

I'm not aware of any PCL that operate during the day. Usually the
system is disabled during daylight hours.
-Robert

The PCL at my home base is usable in the daytime.
Ron (EPM) (N5843Q, Mooney M20E) (CP, ASEL, ASES, IA)

We used to have a Captain flying for us that took great pleasure in keying
the mike several times on unicom, while over the central valley of Cal. at
FL410. He said it would light up runways from redding to bakersfield.

Al


"Roger" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:19:10 GMT, wrote:

Having just crossed the border, and visited a few non-towered airports
in the US, I'm afraid I may have done some injustice by using the PCL
pilot controlled lighting a bit too much. Knowing the somewhat
precarious financial state of those airports, and the electricity hog
the lights can be, I'm wondering if its use is required at all. Can
the USA procedures experts here please comment on the following?

1. Any legal requirement to use them during the day (that is, any
FAR)? Is it an AIM recommended procedure?

Most, but not all leave that feature turned off during the day.

2. Will 3 clicks ALWAYS turn off the REILs or approach lights?
Will 3 clicks sometimes turn off the runway lights, and if so, any way
to know this in advance?

Always? Check the AFD, but it works for most.

3. Why not have an ability to turn them all off, runway lights
and approach/REILs?

They are supposed to turn themselves off after 5 minutes, but I
supposed not all are set up that way. When I was a student the
instructors had me hit the runways lights coming into the pattern and
then again on base or final. That was to prevent them timing out at an
inopportune time.

As to turning them all off, they shoudl take care of that by
themselves. I find the REILS blind me. I did use the REILs to find
an airport in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Even with the runway
lights on, that place was darn near invisible set down into the woods.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


Just trying to help save Uncle Sam some $

Stan