Lighten up by Bob Collins
There is more than one way to make yourself be seen during the day, and to make the runway light up at night.

RV-9 builder and pilot Pete Howell always seems to be experimenting. A few months ago, at a quarterly meeting of the Minnesota Wing of Van's Air Force, he gave a presentation on his e-mag/p-mag set-up, and described how he can get his fuel flow down to around 4 gph in some cases.

He was back for more last Saturday for more when the Wing held its first meeting of 2007 in the airpark hangar of Dick Nordquist, a multiple offender.

Pete says he originally installed one of the Duckworks landing/taxi lights (as I have), in which you install a bracket between the two outboard ribs, slice a little out of the leading edge and install a light that rotates around the bracket so it can be used as either a taxi or landing light.

"I don't do a lot of flying at night," Howell said. "And I noticed when I was landing that I wasn't getting a lot of light." The Duckworks light comes with a 55 or 100 watt GE H3 halogen bulb.

Howell decided he wanted an HID (high intensity discharge) system. "It creates a lot of light," he said. "The difference between halogen and the HID light is 100 candlepower vs. 100,000 candlepower for HID."

Most of us have seen the effect of HID lighting in passing luxury cars, some of which have HID lights that have a bluish "daylight" appearance to them.

"The big thing for me was it draws a lot less current," according to Howell. "The gas gets ignited but once it gets started, it takes a lot less electricity to keep the thing going, current-wise. And it creates less heat -- 150 vs. 300 degrees. The lamps should last a long time because there's no filament. Because these don't have filaments, they're rated at about 3,000 hours and people are getting even more than that."

There's only one problem. They're expensive. Real expensive. "The Duckworks kit is a nice kit," Howell acknowledged. "But it's $450 plus shipping."

So Howell explored his "cheap guy way." He says the "cheap guy way" is to call and order the 100W halogen kit from Duckworks for $115 (this is the "round" set-up, not the rectangular one that sells for $75). "Then, from the magic of E-Bay" you can get two D1S bulbs and ballasts from a wrecked Audi A4 or S4 for $250."

The trick, then, is to fit the ballasts. "The Audio ballasts fits the Duckworks bracket like it was designed to go there," according to Howell. Then, you make a mount for the D1S bulb, removing the 100w bulb in the process.

To do this, use a large rubber grommet between the bulb and the existing mounting plate. For proper performance, you need to adjust the bulb with the focal point of the reflector in the mountain plate. This is a trial-error-method accomplished by varying the depth of the grommet. When he had it the way he wanted it, Howell safety-wired the assembly (shown in photo above.

All that's left, he said, is to wire it up. But be careful! "The two power wires that go to the 12V are not polarized.

Once done, he said it's a matter of : aim it (best guess), fly it (checking the game) and "repeat until happy."

"At Anoka, I can sit at the end of the runway and light up the whole runway," Howell said. "And it's at a reasonable cost and lower current draw. The total cost was $240 plus 6 hours to design, build, and install it."

A question from one of the RVers in the audience was "can you wig-wag" them. "Maybe" Howell said. "They're not designed to be switched on and off" with great frequency, noting, however, that CreativAir has a unit that is said to accomplish this. According to the Web site, the cost is $60.