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Flashing Qantas tail

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Old 24th Aug 2010, 12:03
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Flashing Qantas tail

Sitting where I am here in Adelaide, I can see the planes coming on approach, probably for about 1 mile of approach and 2 miles out from the runway.

Not 30 seconds ago, I saw a Qantas plane coming in and its tail was flashing on and off in a 1 second cycle (it's night time right now).

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Old 24th Aug 2010, 12:09
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Economising - it uses half the power
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Old 24th Aug 2010, 12:16
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Maybe to make them easier to spot in poor visibility?

On a side note, I know some Bizjets have their landing lights flashing and apparently its designed to make them easier to spot and to scare birds!
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Old 24th Aug 2010, 12:30
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Nothing new. This question was asked over 12 months ago and the answer was that QF 738's were being modified with pulsing Logo Lights to improve aircraft visibility around the airport.

I reckon they look pretty dumb.
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Old 24th Aug 2010, 12:52
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The pulse landing lights also fitted to the 738 fleet are indeed a bird dispersant method...
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Old 24th Aug 2010, 13:00
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And to the Dash-8 fleet. but we still hit birds.
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Old 24th Aug 2010, 13:42
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...and to the PC12 NG!
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Old 24th Aug 2010, 15:03
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Everyone is correct, flashing Landing lights for inc viz and to hopefully scare birds out of your flightpath.
Approved Kits are avail for many light aircraft, singles and twins to do the same thing.
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Old 24th Aug 2010, 15:23
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Originally Posted by aussie027
flashing Landing lights for inc viz and to hopefully scare birds out of your flightpath.
And to think if I flash at some birds, I get arrested. (Sorry, couldn't resist)
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Old 24th Aug 2010, 16:20
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Loose Logolight wire?
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Old 24th Aug 2010, 22:37
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I've not seen a pulselight fitted to logo light but I've fitted pulselight sytems to landing lights on lighties.
One of the advertised advantages is increased life of the "globes" if they are used mainly for identification and bird scaring. So far their life has been much better, so it looks like the system works as advertised.

Wunwing
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 00:54
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I've seen them a few times.
I asked some QF mates on the 73 and that's what they are..........."pulsing Logo lights"
I don't think all 738's have been modded yet.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 01:12
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For a large number of the QF 738 fleet the landing lights and the logo lights have been modified to have a pulse setting. The switches for these lights can be on full or pulse. The normal position for the logo light is not pulse however it is easy to mistakenly select the pulse position as there is only a small difference in position.
Also if there is a TCAS traffic alert lights will automatically pulse.
Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be inhibited on the ground in some aircraft. Meaning your landing lights can automatically pulse when taxiing and an aircraft appears as proximate traffic on TCAS.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 01:55
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Meaning your landing lights can automatically pulse when taxiing and an aircraft appears as proximate traffic on TCAS.
Only when the strobes are on.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 03:36
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Never understood that if 150dB of engine dont scare them away how is a light supposed to? Is there statistics to say the lights work?

Biggles, Gold!!!
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 09:34
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Fly-by-desire, Scaring birds from the runway stirip is proving to work better by driving up at a steady pace flashing high beam rather than roaring up blasting the horn or firing bird fright rounds. Well it is with cockies anyway.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 15:03
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maybe base on speed of light is faster than speed of sound?
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