You wouldn’t stick a Mason jar with a light inside it on top of a Lamborghini. So why would anyone attach an ugly conventional navigation light fixture to a sleek modern helicopter?
This question is one that bothers Nate Calvin, president and CEO of AeroLEDs. “People go to great expenses to buy airframes that are both visually beautiful and aerodynamically efficient,” he said. “Then they ruin the look by attaching squat, ugly navigation lights and beacons whose fundamental design has not changed for 70 years.”
Calvin blames this practice not on aircraft owners, but the unimaginative lighting fixtures offered by stick-in-the-mud old-style equipment makers.
“With the advent of LED technology, legacy equipment manufacturers simply adapted LED technology to their 75-year-old light chassis, and called it a ‘new product’ with an expensive price tag,” he said. “Thankfully, there is now an alternative: AeroLEDs’ stylish, modern product line that redefines an industry with sleek, elegant LED-based designs that look fantastic, and sip power.”
A shining example of this philosophy is AeroLEDs’ SunBeacon II. Designed as a direct replacement for the conventional aircraft beacon, the disk-shaped SunBeacon II is only 1.5 inches tall, compared to the conventional beacon’s typical height of 4.6 inches. (It is just 2.5 inches wide and eight ounces in weight, again smaller and lighter than the competition.)
Available in solid red, white or red and white (mount bracket optional), the technical standard orders (TSO) approved, 24 LED SunBeacon II only consumes 12 watts of power when in use, and has a 50,000-hour rated lifespan. Oh, and its low profile shape is nearly invisible to the eye when not in use — but more than bright enough in solid or strobe mode when in action.
“I believe that lights should not be noticed on the aircraft until they are turned on,” said Calvin, reflecting on the design approach behind the new SunBeacon II and all other AeroLEDs lighting products. “If the light obstructs the natural flow and design of the airframe, then the light design is a bust.”
AeroLEDs’ products have been specifically styled to take advantage of LEDs’ smaller size to create smaller aircraft fixtures that excel in form as well as function.
“Other lighting manufacturers have simply stuck LEDs into their traditional bulky fixtures, which is like building a race car around a stone wheel,” Calvin said. “AeroLEDs has broken the mold by starting with a clean sheet approach by creating aeronautical light fixtures around the LEDs, rather than the other way around.”
The technical details are clearly in AeroLEDs’ favor. The company’s LED products are efficient to meet the needs of all aircraft types where power consumption and weight must be minimized as much as possible.
This parsimonious approach to power and weight is an axiomatic design principle that guides AeroLEDs’ design philosophy, resulting in products that offer maximum performance and minimal operational impact.
This said, LED technology as a whole offers numerous advantages over conventional halogen and xenon bulb-based aircraft lighting technologies. These advantages include long operating lifespans. When integrated into a well-designed lighting system with adequate heat sinking and solid-state mounting, LED-based lighting products will easily last over 50,000 hours of continuous operation.
As well, unlike most other light sources, LEDs do not have their lifespan reduced by on/off cycles. AeroLEDs’ products are designed to keep the LED junction temperatures well below their maximum-rated values to ensure that the manufacturer’s rated life projections are achieved.
LEDs are highly efficient at converting power into light compare to halogen and xenon bulbs. This is why LEDs run cold, while halogen and xenon run hot.
Meanwhile, “the LEDs used in AeroLEDs products have high lumen efficacy ratings, and as a result our products typically use less than one third the power of halogen bulbs,” said Calvin. “This significantly reduces the electrical load on the aircraft’s battery and alternator system.”
Being solid state, LEDs can tolerate high levels of shock and vibration without failing. In contrast, the main reason for halogen bulb filament failures and xenon tube lead failures is airframe vibration.
The bottom line: AeroLEDs’ aircraft lights deliver cost-effective, long-life aircraft lighting in small enclosures that are aesthetically attractive and discreet. They accent the airframes they are mounted on, rather than detracting from them. This is why AeroLEDs makes these lighting fixtures.
“We hope to bring aircraft lighting to the forefront of aviation products, moving a foregone and forgotten part of aviation design from a required necessity to a desired accessory,” said Calvin.
“Complementing your aircraft investment in all respects is exactly what AeroLEDs products are designed to do,” he added. “Why on earth would you use anything else on your million-dollar helicopter — unless you like the idea of putting an illuminated Mason jar on a Lamborghini?”
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