Heres a deal for you. Replace your beacon, strobe, navigation and landing lights with new LED lights. Theyll look sharp, chew far less power and, best of all by far, you’ll never have to replace them again.
And itll only cost you about two grand.
Making the Switch
Few pilots are going to replace all of their older lighting with new LED technology
on a whim, simply because of the expense. If it is just a bulb, bulbs are cheap; hardly ever over $20, or even $100 for a strobe bulb. Its when other components start to fail that changing to LEDs becomes an option. Corrosion and simple age ruin bulb fixtures, sockets, connections and power packs on strobes. The flashers on Cessnas are a particular bugaboo. Even then, do you replace just the bad light with an LED unit or do you replace all of them at the same time?
Know that with LEDs you cant just change a bulb. LEDs arent bulbs as we know them. Switching to LEDs for an existing light means replacing the entire lighting fixture, hopefully matching what you already have. If thats Whelen, then your chances are pretty good. If not, there may be some jury rigging or paint touch up.
Almost all existing wiring is compatible with LEDs because the little gizmos require so much less electricity to operate. Using your current switches and breakers should also pose no problem. Occasionally, a manufacturer may require an inline fuse somewhere, but thats a simple fix. There’s also no RFI/EMI to worry about. In most cases, the replacements take up less space than the original, particularly with