light in wheel well 777
 

http://www.flightlevel350.com/Aircra...ideo-8155.html

Look at the Sinapore 777 light in the wheel well, does anyone know whats its for? Keep the bogies toasty warm?:)

Reading light for stowaways? Actually it is for maintenance personnel. Many routine checks require access to and are performed in the wheel well.

The red light is to indicate that a "unsafe area" . Pretty irrelevent in normal (flying ) operations as the U/C and U/C doors area isnt anywhere a person would be . However , during maintenance , when U/C doors are dropped to carry out inspections and/or component changes, maintenance etc, you would not want to be in the area when the red light illuminates......for instance , doors have been selected to close, or U/C selected up.
There are physical pins which engineers should put in the door locks and U/C downlocks during maintenance to prevent any inadvertant operation, but..... if the lights go on I would not hesitate in getting out ! :ooh:

Indeed the red light indicates doors are going to retract. It's positioned on the keel beam. I'm aware of this on the 777 and 757, so it's certainly a Boeing thing. Don't know about Airbus. Pax aircraft do also have regular lights in the wheel well. On most Boeing aircraft you have swithes to put the lights on/off (757 on nose gear leg and behind main gear doors). The A300 has the lights in the main gear compt always on on ground. There are even cases where the aircraft is grounded when these ordinary lights are not working. Because it's necessary for the pilot to do it's preflight. Had this once, but since all our pilots have torches they leave it as is now.