Accessories

LED Landing Lights: Worth the Investment

This economy of scale has put upward pressure on volume, downward pressure on pricing and competitive pressure to improve LED efficiency and longevity. In new aircraft, LED landing lights are all but standard, as are LED position and and strobe lights. The aftermarket remains a mixed bag. A survey of any ramp will find a smattering of LEDs, but a bunch of old GE 4509s. That the retrofit market is small is indicated by the small number of players-about six. As we went to press in February, that dropped by one when Whelen announced that it acquired LoPresti Aviation's entire line, including the recently formed Illumivation for LED products. The new combined entity is called Whelen Aerospace Technologies. Most of these companies have some tilt toward large commercial and military applications because, well, that's where the profit is.

Paul Bertorelli
Verified

Two questions about LED landing lights: Are they brighter than ever and, if so, is it worth upgrading if you bought one five years ago? Two answers: Yes and no.

LED technology continues to advance incrementally and the lamps we examined are both measurably and visibly brighter. But what they are not is cheaper. If you’re slumming around with an old GE 4509-the industry standard landing light-the cheapest LED replacement will cost six to 15 times as much.

Paul Bertorelli

Paul Bertorelli is Aviation Consumer’s Editor at Large. In addition to his valued contributions to Aviation Consumer, his in-depth video productions on sister publication AVweb cover a wide variety of topics that greatly contribute to safety, operation and aircraft ownership. When Paul isn’t writing or filming, he’s out flying his J3 Cub.