backup cockpit lighting

What do you use for extra and backup lighting in the cockpit for IFR
flights at night? Some airplanes have pretty decent lighting built in.
Others can have decent cockpit lighting and poor panel lighting.
Others have shadows in poor locations, or areas of the panel/cockpit
you'd really like to have illuminated, but aren't.

Myself, I keep a LED flashlight around my neck, and other flashlights
nearby and handy. I keep on trying other items and discarding them.
Perhaps .. I've just never found the right item.

Things I've been thinking about ...
A yoke/yoke-board mounted light, such as a flex-lite or some LED
bar might work well for lighting the panel either in normal flight
or when the lights go out. Some velcro on adhesive strips, stick it
to the cockpit ceiling, and put something like a pelican VersaBrite
II up there to provide some area illumination.

Some better lighting for a yoke/knee board would be nice, maybe a flexlite,
or same flood light on velcro mentioned earlier. Of course, some
sort of backlit timer/counter/stopwatch would really be great, but I
haven't found a good one in many years of looking.

That's some of the considerations I have, was wondering what other people
use.

Thanks
Bolo -- Josef T. Burger
--
| Josef Burger U of WI-Madison Computer Sciences | "No matter where you go,
| "Bolo" uwvax!bolo | There you are"
| http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~bolo/ | -- Buckaroo Banzai

(Josef Burger) wrote in
:

What do you use for extra and backup lighting in the cockpit for IFR
flights at night? Some airplanes have pretty decent lighting built
in. Others can have decent cockpit lighting and poor panel lighting.
Others have shadows in poor locations, or areas of the panel/cockpit
you'd really like to have illuminated, but aren't.

I have a home-made lip light on my mike, with a green LED and an
additional slide switch I added after I had to file 3 IFR flights while
enroute, trying to keep the light on with my lip while talking to FSS. I
also have an LED headlight from Wally World that came with a red LED,
which I replaced with a green one. Red is a poor choice for night
lights, and I stopped using them long ago. Green is far superior. The
headlight also has 2 white LEDs, and I use it for preflights, starting,
etc. The green LED that I installed is really too bright, and I seldom
use it. The lip light works very well, though, just enough light to see
what I'm doing without blinding my FO.

--
Regards,

Stan

"Stan Gosnell" wrote in message
...

I have a home-made lip light on my mike, with a green LED and an
additional slide switch I added after I had to file 3 IFR flights while
enroute, trying to keep the light on with my lip while talking to FSS. I
also have an LED headlight from Wally World that came with a red LED,
which I replaced with a green one. Red is a poor choice for night
lights, and I stopped using them long ago. Green is far superior. The
headlight also has 2 white LEDs, and I use it for preflights, starting,
etc. The green LED that I installed is really too bright, and I seldom
use it. The lip light works very well, though, just enough light to see
what I'm doing without blinding my FO.

--
Regards,

Stan

Stan,

Just curious..

What do you find superior about green instead of red light?

TIA,

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ

"Josef Burger" wrote in message
.. .
What do you use for extra and backup lighting in the cockpit for IFR
flights at night?

Besides the little Photon Microlight hanging around my neck, and the small
two-AA red-lensed flashlight clipped to my shirt, and a few more lights of
various types in trays under both front seats and in my flight bag, I mainly
use a red LED headlamp. It always points where I am looking, whether it be
my kneeboard, the instrument panel in front of me, or the radio stack. I
have tried several: an Eveready, an Energizer, both $13-16 at Target or
WalMart, and a Photon Fusion ($$). The Photon has adjustable brightness,
but also a bunch of unneeded flashing modes. The two lower-cost units are
almost too bright, but work well and have the advantage of simplicity.

When introducing students to night flight, I tell them to not buy any kind
of light, other than maybe a good D-cell or "lantern battery" light for
preflight, until after our first flight. On that flight, I let them try
various kinds of flashlights, then let them try a headlamp, so that they can
choose what suits them based on having tried some things. Invariably they
decide on the headlamp.

Stan

Let's read AIM 8-1-6.

Bob Gardner

"Jay Beckman" wrote in message
news:CKRxd.11974$ry.7550@fed1read01...
"Stan Gosnell" wrote in message
...

I have a home-made lip light on my mike, with a green LED and an
additional slide switch I added after I had to file 3 IFR flights while
enroute, trying to keep the light on with my lip while talking to FSS. I
also have an LED headlight from Wally World that came with a red LED,
which I replaced with a green one. Red is a poor choice for night
lights, and I stopped using them long ago. Green is far superior. The
headlight also has 2 white LEDs, and I use it for preflights, starting,
etc. The green LED that I installed is really too bright, and I seldom
use it. The lip light works very well, though, just enough light to see
what I'm doing without blinding my FO.

--
Regards,

Stan

Stan,

Just curious..

What do you find superior about green instead of red light?

TIA,

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ

I don't fly much IFR at night, actually none within the last year. I
would fly some if I had good VFR under me, just for the practice.
But...when I did fly IFR at night, I had a flashlight that I put a red
cover over (autoparts store tape for repairing broken tailights) and
taped it to the overhead bar. That way if I lost electrical, I could
reach up there and turn it on. This along with a couple of other
flashlights. A sudden electrical failure at night would be very
difficult to manage, no autopilot, no lights and no radios, ALL
happening at once. One reason why I was never very enthusiastic about
night IFR. Most electrical failures give warning signs before going
full fatal, so you have that working in your favor. But it would be
very spooky to be in the clouds at night with no electric, very spooky.

This is something I've spent some time on, as my 57 year old eyes need lots of
help at night.

The best "conventional" solution I have found is to velcro a red Photon III
Covert microlight to each side of my headset. Set to medium brightness and
aimed to get a sort of horizontal ellipse pattern, you do not even need
instrument lighting. The light goes where you're looking and it is there before
you turn on ship's power and after you turn it off. Dual redundant, almost zero
weight, and the batteries seem to last forever. This solves your yoke light,
kneeboard light, panel light, and area light problems all in one whack.

Note 1: The "covert" part of the light is a little snout that shields the LED so
the light only goes forwards. Without the snout, there are distracting
reflections from the side window. Note 2: The Velcro mounting is not super
stable. 3M Dual Lock is much better if you can find it. mcmaster.com carries
it, as do others.

The lights do tend to get knocked off when the headset is in its bag. Photon
sells a little leash, about 3" long, that can be used to clip each light to the
headset frame. Then the little things can't wander too far.

One other thing learned: You want the light to be as high as possible, ideally
above your eyes. Otherwise, when you are writing on your clipboard, the shadow
of your hand will cover the where you are writing. That is the reason I don't
think the cute little mic boom lights are too great.

I am now using one of the Clarity Aloft headsets (which, BTW is spectacular in
all aspects) so I have made a sort of wire loop gadget that is effectively a
pair of red LED headlights that are more or less in the same position as the
Photon lights were on my standard headlights. An elastic band headlight would
probably work as well, as long as the brightness was adjustable.



On 12/20/04 11:59 PM, Josef Burger wrote the following:
What do you use for extra and backup lighting in the cockpit for IFR
flights at night? Some airplanes have pretty decent lighting built in.
Others can have decent cockpit lighting and poor panel lighting.
Others have shadows in poor locations, or areas of the panel/cockpit
you'd really like to have illuminated, but aren't.

Myself, I keep a LED flashlight around my neck, and other flashlights
nearby and handy. I keep on trying other items and discarding them.
Perhaps .. I've just never found the right item.

Things I've been thinking about ...
A yoke/yoke-board mounted light, such as a flex-lite or some LED
bar might work well for lighting the panel either in normal flight
or when the lights go out. Some velcro on adhesive strips, stick it
to the cockpit ceiling, and put something like a pelican VersaBrite
II up there to provide some area illumination.

Some better lighting for a yoke/knee board would be nice, maybe a flexlite,
or same flood light on velcro mentioned earlier. Of course, some
sort of backlit timer/counter/stopwatch would really be great, but I
haven't found a good one in many years of looking.

That's some of the considerations I have, was wondering what other people
use.

Thanks
Bolo -- Josef T. Burger

"Bob Gardner" wrote in message
...
Let's read AIM 8-1-6.

Bob Gardner

"Jay Beckman" wrote in message
news:CKRxd.11974$ry.7550@fed1read01...

Stan,

Just curious..

What do you find superior about green instead of red light?

TIA,

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ




Bob,

I know colored light will distort how well you can read a chart at night.

I was just asking what's better about green instead of red?

Jay B

This is an IFR newsgroup, and I assume that everyone is using
black-and-white charts. The usual argument against red light is that it
washes out detail on sectionals. The AIM does not give a glowing endorsement
of red lighting and emphasizes the need for white light. Green is a nice
alternative. I never used red light in all my years of flying IFR, but that
is just a personal peccadillo. I found that turning white cockpit and
instrument lighting down to an irreducible minimum worked well for me. I
also used diffused white light to illuminate approach plates.

I note that the chemical light sticks designed for emergency use glow green,
but that might just be a question of available chemicals. Googling "night
vision _ green" gets a lot of hits that refer to night vision goggles. I
hope and pray that none of our newsgroupie friends are using NVGs. That
appears to have driven the military to go to green instead of red.

Bob

"Jay Beckman" wrote in message
news:SY%xd.12213$ry.10070@fed1read01...
"Bob Gardner" wrote in message
...
Let's read AIM 8-1-6.

Bob Gardner

"Jay Beckman" wrote in message
news:CKRxd.11974$ry.7550@fed1read01...

Stan,

Just curious..

What do you find superior about green instead of red light?

TIA,

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ




Bob,

I know colored light will distort how well you can read a chart at night.

I was just asking what's better about green instead of red?

Jay B

Electroluminescent strip, 3"x24".
Pick your color... blue,green, yellow, red, orange.
Operates off a 9v battery for several hours.
$50.
http://beingseentechnologies.goemerchant2.com
Go to: "9 Even Wider..." on the left side.