Though the simple concept of see-and-avoid has been the key to collision avoidance for decades, many owners still overlook LED anti-collision lighting upgrades. While the investment and shop effort are far from trivial, these modern smart lights kick the visibility factor up several notches.
Moreover, from a technical standpoint, the argument for LED strobes is easy. Compared to old-school incandescents, LEDs deliver longer life, increased brightness, reduced power drain and the simplicity of having fewer associated components in the airframe. Plus, unlike many legacy systems with separate nav lights and strobes, most all modern LED wingtip units combine nav and strobe functions into one self-contained single unit. Plus, there’s a potential weight savings since there are no external power supplies—somewhat streamlining the installation.
To see what that installation entails, we rounded up three popular systems from Whelen, AeroLEDs and Aveo Engineering for professional installation on a couple of Grumman Tigers, plus we tried a DIY install on a GlaStar experimental.
The takeaway? Installation effort varies greatly from airframe to airframe, so budget extra for cleaning up the wiring (and potentially adding some) and in many cases, modifying the mounts.
Much brighter lights
We learned early on in the project that LED anti-collision lights are far superior to the incandescent systems they replace. From a power perspective using landing lights as a simple example, the old GE Q4509 quartz landing light draws 8.3 amps at 14 volts over its 100-hour life span. Conversely, the Whelen Parmetheus LED landing light draws 3.8 amps at 14 volts (that’s 55 percent less power) and has a remarkable 10,000-hour operating life. LED strobes are current-savers, too—the Whelen Orion LED strobe drawing a measly 0.70 amps in a 14-volt system, as one example. Efficient power consumption aside, when installed by the pros, these lights simply look good and pack a punch in utility, with multiple functions self-contained in one housing.
The $1535 Whelen Orion 650E embedded forward position/anti-collision wingtip lighting system (www.flywat.com) has forward position lights in either red or green, along with a white flashing anti-collision light function. Study the physical installation carefully—these are designed for flush mounting behind a lens in a fairing only. That makes them a non-starter for aircraft models with lighting not enclosed in lens fairings. They might even require some structural rework for them to flush fit tighter fairing light housings, as we found on the Grumman.
The $1745 AeroLEDs Pulsar Series LED navigation lights (www.aeroleds.com) serve as a two- or three-in-one light: a navigation light for the standard directional red and green positioning, a strobe light and where applicable, a rear-facing white position light. Designed with an industry-standard mounting footprint, they might be ideal for replacing legacy light installations.
The $1738 Aveo Engineering Ultra embedded Galactica LED navigation lights (www.aveoengineering.com) contain five red or green LEDs and 17 LEDs for the strobe function. Nothing in the manual dictates a specific mounting environment, plus they are listed as waterproof—unlike the Whelen, which requires a lens over the light fixture. Aveo also offers wingtip module packages, with the Galactica lighting preinstalled in a fiberglass fabric or Kevlar/Carbon wingtip. They’re waterproof, shockproof and dustproof.
It’s worth a couple of words on reliability, and LEDs have an earned reputation for longevity. But lights can fail—with differing failure modes among systems.
Whelen’s Jeff Argersinger and Aveo’s Jakub Gregorv explained that you need to think of LEDs in terms of diodes. Despite having multiple LEDs for nav and strobe flashes, if one single diode fails in the open state, either the associated nav or strobe LED will fail. Pull the assembly off the airframe for repair or replacement. AeroLEDs said if a single LED fails, there are multiple strings of other LEDs that still function.
Whelen’s LED product warranty is five years from the date of purchase, not to exceed six years from the date of its manufacture. Aveo’s certified lights have a five-year warranty. Don’t try and fix it yourself—any evidence that the unit has been opened, and also wires cut, will void the factory coverage. AeroLEDs also have a five-year warranty from the date of purchase, but only if the customer has registered the product and has the sales receipt. The point is to keep track of paperwork, including product registration (many shops don’t do it for you) for an easier warranty claim.
Physical installation
While it may be possible to use the existing lighting wiring (and switches) when upgrading to LEDs, the installation costs often outpace hardware costs and they can vary widely—even among the same type of aircraft.
For our field report, we installed two (different) systems on similar Grumman AA-5B Tigers, using the same shop—Shearer Aviation in Pennsylvania.
My Tiger was the test bed for the Whelen Orion 650E lights. It had all the wiring in place from the previous Whelen strobe system, plus the factory nav lights. Thanks to the thorough panel and wiring upgrade in 2019, I was able to utilize the existing control switches, circuit breakers and wiring for the new Whelen LED system.
The first step was to remove all the old equipment, including the Whelen strobe powerpack. That cleaned up and saved 2.1 pounds in the tail section.
Next, the wingtips were removed and there was significant fiberglass repair work needed to patch the old 1-inch diameter nav light fixture holes. Body putty was applied to smooth the whole area. I even went as far as painting the inside of the housing with an artist’s brush to make it look even better, since the aircraft has a high-end paint job. The Whelen system has a metal mounting plate that is installed first. It took quite a bit of time to correctly position the mounting plate at a slight angle within the housing. The Orion nav/strobe LED system barely fit in the allotted space—touching the lens in several places.
There was certainly no room for install error. In the end, removal, repair and installation costs were roughly $2000.
The other Tiger (owned by Kal Patel) got the Aveo Ultra system—which is generally known in the Grumman community as the best fit for the AA5 series. To start, Patel’s Grumman only had the stock nav lights installed and needed additional wiring for the strobes.
The final determination was to run all-new wiring through the airframe—150 feet of it—for both the position lights and strobes, including the synchronization wires.
This meant the ailerons and flaps had to be removed since the inner one-third of the wing is wet and wires must be run between the control tubes and the exterior of that section. While the Aveo Ultra when installed has the same hole pattern as the original Grumman fixtures, the Aveo unit had to be relocated slightly to clear the lens— requiring some minor patching and paint.
None of the units come with control switches. A stock Grumman rocker switch had to be added to the panel, along with a 5-amp inline fuse for the strobes. The installation part of the invoice was a whopping $5000.
We like that all of the units we installed can be synchronized so that the strobes flash simultaneously. It could require adding a synchronization wire, which adds to the invoice. I didn’t add the synchronizing option in my Grumman, but Patel did in his installation. What we observed from the sync versus non-sync comparison was the sync mode flashed all three strobes simultaneously, while the other had a “wig-wag” affect. I think it comes down to preference, and both modes are great for see and avoid safety.
Summary
Our takeaway is that all three systems are similar in operation. As noted, they are extremely bright, proven reliable and we’ll supported, smartly self-contained, lightweight and electrically efficient. But while hardware costs are similar, installation costs can be all over the map.
As Sylvan Martin proved with the DIY AeroLEDs Pulsar installation on his GlaStar experimental, there’s a serious savings in labor since these are essentially drop-ins for the existing Whelen system.Your choice might ultimately come down to size, shape and fit that yield the best (easier) installation.
In our testbed Grummans, the Aveo Galactica was an easy fit, while the Whelen Orion just barely cleared the lens when mounted in the housing. Proving that not every job is alike, in one Grumman all of the stock components were used for retrofitting the Whelen, while the other needed all-new wiring, fuses and switches to accommodate the Aveo. Get a firm quote for installation for any aircraft model before committing.
Speaking of commitment, a flagship LED lighting upgrade may not be for you. With an installed price tag that may approach $7000, it’s time to consider how you operate the aircraft. If you mainly fly day VFR (or infrequently) it might not make sense. Still, we think LED exterior lighting adds sizable utility to all aircraft.
Worth mentioning is that for position lights only (no anti-collision strobes), both AeroLEDs and Whelen offer a bayonet-style LED plug-and-play lamp for around $130—which might make sense for lower budgets.
All of the test bed airplanes fly a lot, and all three owners were pleased with the upgrade—while acknowledging a sizable investment and install effort.
Overall, I’ve been quite happy with the $1745 AeroLEDs Pulsar system I installed on my GlaStar experimental. This is a two-in-one light with red and green positioning, plus strobe light functions. I used the installation instructions provided on the company’s website (where’s the printed ones?) and the product arrived undamaged thanks to a sturdy packing box.
When I saw the Pulsar’s compact size (compared to the old Whelen that was installed) I worried that I might need to patch the existing holes that the incandescent bayonet socket used to sit “sub-flush” inside the wingtip. Thankfully, this was not the case, and the mounting bracket fit the existing mounting hardware. Bravo!
As for performance, the nav lights appear to be about three times brighter than the original. Parked in the 60-foot-wide hangar alley, they light both hangar walls all the way up to the eaves. My old ones did not.
The LED strobes appear to make five times more useful light. The pulse is almost as long as the original strobes’ entire three-flash strobe cycle. This makes a far more useful light beam to help scan for wildlife and other things you don’t want to hit while taxing or entering a runway.
The strobes are so bright they actually light up the ground a little from the traffic pattern altitude, and road signs a mile away wink right back at you! My local control tower commented on how bright the strobes were on my first flight post-install—quite impressive.
If I had some minor nits to pick it might be the lack of printed wiring schematics in the product’s box, and that all three strobes flashing together produce a slight ripple in bus voltage. That causes my glareshield lights to twinkle when set to an extremely low brightness level.
Other than that, I’ve been happily enjoying the reduced alternator load and increased visibility. Eliminating the strobe box in both wingtips saved weight as well.
—Sylvan Martin
uAvionix has enjoyed great success the past few years with its skyBeacon combination LED nav and strobe light. It won’t work in most wingtip fairings without some creative modification, but it does fit seamlessly in place of classic Grimes incandescent position lights mounted externally.
Priced at $2099 for certified aircraft, it meets the ADS-B Out mandate, and with it, uAvionix says it has bragging rights to the lowest installation cost of any UAT ADS-B Out system. In addition to the 978 MHz ADS-B Out transmitter and LED lighting, there’s a WAAS GPS/SBAS receiver and a barometric pressure sensor with an altitude encoder. The altitude encoder isn’t a replacement for the primary Mode C altitude reporter, but instead it ensures that the skyBeacon always has access to pressure altitude data to transmit over ADS-B, regardless of the radar coverage environment.
We’ve installed a handful of them on a variety of aircraft, and some are easier than others. The first step in any skyBeacon installation is ensuring the device will fit (externally) on the existing left wingtip. When connecting the skyBeacon’s anti-collision lighting, the electrical installation consists of three wires. The red wire connects with the power wire coming from the aircraft’s existing position light circuit breaker, the yellow wire connects with the aircraft’s anti-collision power wire (after bypassing any high-voltage power supply left over from an old system) and the black wire connects with aircraft ground. If the plane doesn’t have an existing strobe system, you’ll need to install a control switch.
The $750 skySensor, an add-on product for the right wingtip, has ADS-B In for weather and traffic and is designed to replace green navigation lamps that have a three-hole mounting scheme. We looked at it in a field report in the October 2023 Aviation Consumer. Visit www.uavionix.com.
—Larry Anglisano
