How far does the Aircraft Headlights goes?

Eh???

As far as the rest of the plane, but arriving marginally in front of most of the passengers...?...?...

Sorry that was not the answer i was looking for...

Ritz, behave! Bhavesh is asking how far ahead the beam of the headlight extends.

I was looking for a page that provided information on the exact luminance value of an aircraft's landing light versus that of an automobile. Most of the pages that I found were discussing the physics of luminance and I did not think them helpful with your question.

However, I hope this page will be helpful.

I flew commercial aircraft for 22-years and from a practical point of view I can tell you that landing lights are brighter than an auto's headlights in the bright position.

They are usually mounted in a aircraft's wing area and directed provide a view ahead of the aircraft. For night time taxi operations, the aircraft is equipped with taxi lights which are mounted on the nose wheel area. Just as you wouldn't use your "brights" when meeting oncoming traffic, the landing lights are not used except for the actual takeoff / landing.

Operation Lights On began about thirty years ago. This program attempts to get all pilots to turn on their landing lights when flying in the vicinity of the airport at all times. The idea is to make the aircraft more visible.

I hope something here will help.

Dwight

Dwight, your link specs out the landing light at 450 Watts. The power of car headlights is 30-70 Watts -- so the aircraft light consumes ten times the power of an ordinary headlight. That's gotta be bright!

The penetration distance of the beam obviously depends on not only its luminance, but also on the transparency of the atmosphere to white light -- which is affected by fog and many other local factors -- as well as exactly how the lower limit of visibility is defined.

Truck bulbs are rated @ 75/70 watts on a 24 volt electrics
Though there are 100 watt bulbs listed (non standard) for 12 volt electrics (Real eyeball searers !!!) Have to Modify the wiring otherwise ..Burnout!
In the UK you get over the counter 60/55 Watters which do a good job

I had a friend in high school who always put airplane landing lights in place of his brights in his 61, 62, 63, 64 Chevies.* All I can tell you is that they were the brightest lights I've ever seen, and that they got hot about 5 seconds after he turned them on. You could feel the heat almost a foot away from the bulb.



*He managed to wreck them quite often. His father was not amused. My friend ended up as Chief of Detectives in my home town. Go figure.

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
My friend ended up as Chief of Detectives in my home town. Go figure.

Yes, that would tally with my understanding of certain police here...

(Sorry, Karrow, won't do it again... ...)

Bhavesh, I hope that the extremely well-researched and beautifully presented answers above were of some use to you...