A customer who posts as Ryan Flys on YouTube has published a great video describing the process to build and install a Flyleds The Works kit in his RV-7A, and of course the same process applies to The Essentials kit. If you’re wondering what’s involved with fitting a kit to your wingtips, please click through!
The Flyleds team will be back at EAA Airventure this year along with the crew at Flyboy Accessories at booth 644, diagonally across the way from Van’s Aircraft out at the Homebuilt Aircraft vendor’s area. Look for all the flashing lights!
If you have a tail dragger aircraft then we have the best and brightest light on the market for you! It’s similar to our renowned Seven Stars light but with the top two light modules tilted downwards, so you get light properly aimed for landing and properly aimed for when the tail is on the ground, all in the one light. There’s nothing else like it!
Happy customer Don H wrote up the assembly and installation process in this thread, and had these words to say about them:
I have yet to take photos with both lights installed, but while practising formation flying last Sunday, with me in trail behind Lead, #2 commented he could see the reflection of my lights on the bottom of Lead’s wing. It was a nice bright sunny day.
I’m calling the mission to burn retinas at 10 miles accomplished!
We know our Seven Stars lights are the best lights you can buy on the market, and our happy delighted customers agree.
Vic Syracuse from Base Leg Aviation recently installed a pair on his RV-10.
I think your Seven Stars are a safety upgrade for all night flyers and are quite shockingly fantastic. There is so much light it is like landing in the daytime. Depth perception is there, and the usual procedure for night landings of “flare-and-let-it-settle” was gone. All three landings were squeakers. I even taxied back to take a picture of the runway from the cockpit view. It was amazing! Upon arriving back at my home field (grass) which is usually a black hole, at one hundred-fifty feet over the approach end I could see almost half of the runway!
The new lights exceed my wildest expectations.
Our Seven Stars lights continue to receive praise from anyone who flies with them. Customer Mike M recently sent us this amazing message:
Last week I was flying towards Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport (KDFW). I posted a short message and photo about the flight on Van’s Air Force (VAF). Two days later I was contacted by an air traffic controller with the message below. He saw us from over 40 miles away in the middle of the day because of our flashing Seven Stars lights. 40+ miles!
…for some reason I happen to look east and saw bright wig wag lights. Our radar scope is usually looking at about a 20 mile range, but I ranged it out to 50 miles and started clicking on radar tags. There were 3 airplanes it could have been at the time so I kept them highlighted on my scope and kept an eye visually out the window which one was wig wagging as you flew over DFW. I wrote down your callsign and now I only remember your callsign because it ended in my initials MG.
No doubt about it, it was well over 40 miles that I saw you from the tower cab!
…and it turns out that the tower controller is a Flyleds customer as well! He also bought two Seven Stars and our The Original kit. A wise choice!
Folks, we don’t make this stuff up. We will happily forward you the whole email exchange if you don’t believe us!
Hi Paul. Last June I actually got my RV7 flying. The lights are fantastic and I’m told you can see me coming from miles away, even in our murky weather.
A number of my fellow builders have also chosen to fit Flyleds during their build and our Light Aircraft Association have adopted ‘The Works’ as a ‘Repeat Mod’ which makes incorporating them into the build very straightforward.
It looks like your business goes from strength to strength and rightly so, it’s a great product.
Kind regards
Robert and Mair
This feedback was for our Seven Stars light, but we get these kind of reports for all of our lights:
I have been flying with these lights for over a month now and have been surprised by how many people come over after you land to comment how visible you are from sooo far away!
Ashley M
Truly a great safety improvement even for day VFR.
Some feedback from customer Ivan L:
Let me say again how much I enjoyed building the kit! You say “You built the rest of the airplane, you should build your lighting too” and you are completely right! I’d done a bit of hobby soldering many years ago, but nothing recently and your instructions were so clear and practical that they gave me full confidence to jump right in.
Those strobes make my garage workshop look like a disco!
My compliments all around for a great addition to the homebuilding world.
We know there are lots of you out there that fly into dark places. And we know there are lots of you that just want more! Our brand new Seven Stars landing light should keep you happy. 9000 lumens of nice clear white light, using the same highly focused collimating lenses as used in our The Works kit and our Combo lights.
Just more of the same lighting goodness, really. A whole lot more!
We love your feedback, both good and bad. If it’s the latter, we aim to make it right and I don’t think we’ve failed at that yet!
We spent almost a year researching and developing the Flyleds Works kit, choosing which LED to use, getting the power design right, and finding the best quality lenses available. It’s incredibly gratifying to get emails like the following:
Paul, I purchased your double spot light LEDs as a “temporary” replacement for my current RV-7A halogen landing lights. I installed the lights in my existing fittings and tested them this evening. Quite honestly, I’m blown away by the brightness of these lights. I fly turbine aircraft for a living, and your lights are the equal to anything I’ve flown before. I was considering spending double the money for other lighting solutions, but now I’m only trying to figure out where to put more Flyleds in my aircraft. Thank you for your product and customer support, let me know how I can help spread the word!
Dave N, KS.
We were honoured to get this feedback from one of our “Works” kit customers: (Thank you Randy!)
“The Works lights are simply awesome. I’ve flown with them several times at night now and continue to be surprised every time I get close to the runway during my approach and see how much they light things up. It’s the kind of illumination I’m used to in my day job (A320) but certainly not what I was used to in the stock Van’s setup on the RV-8.”
“The Works” landing light kits are now available for the RV-10, RV-14, and RV-7 and -8s with W-715-1 wingtips, which came with Van’s kits younger than ten or so years old.
RV-9 and earlier “batwing” customers, we haven’t forgotten about you. Watch this space! Kits are now available!
We have made a Flyleds kit to suit W415 wingtips that has been fitted with a modification kit from RMD Aircraft Lighting.
It will drop into place where the original cover plates went. Our customer pictured below chose to change their PAR-36 light with an aftermarket LED product at the same time.
Select RV-4/6/8 LG when you place your order!
Head on over to Flyboy Accessories for some cool additions and improvements for your RV! Blake and the team can sort you out with some new parts for your project. We’re sure there’s some shipping discounts to be had there as well!
The idea of having ‘navs’ or position lights on your plane is so that other aircraft can see you coming, and work out appropriate evasive action if required.
The simple question is, how far away do you want to be seen from?
We took a Flyleds demonstration kit to the Oshkosh fly in this year. In the photo below, the Flyleds demo box is sitting on the ground below the wing of the plane. The plane has another ($$$) LED product fitted to the wing. The Flyleds box is admittedly both the red and green LEDs in the one small area, but as you can see, our phone camera just couldn’t cope with the brightness and has called it white light (it was otherwise pitch black). There is a ghost image of the Flyleds box near the wing root caused by lens flare that shows that this is the position lights only, and not the strobes in operation.
So, which would you prefer to be; invisible or visible to others?
Our hangar mate Peter has almost finished his RV7. We love how he’s painted the Flyleds board to match the rest of the awesome metal flake paintjob on his wing. As per usual, it’s impossible to take a meaningful photo of the boards when the lights are on. The camera just can’t cope!
More pictures to follow when the plane is ready!
Some verbatim feedback from only the last three months from our customers:
“Thank you Paul! I appreciate your excellent customer service.” Lyle, California.
“I’ve been busy here soldering the LED’s, resistors, etc. to the boards. It’s fun! You save a lot of money, and boy are they bright! Excellent product.” Bruce, Oregon.
“Here’s a pic of the lights installed on my old style RV-6 wingtip. Still some body work to do but the lights look and perform just great!! Thanks so much for the excellent customer service!” Alex, BC Canada.
“After the final install they work great… still have spots in my eyes.” Scott, Ohio
“I’ve really enjoyed building these things. First time for me building a circuit board. You made it easy!” Paul, Alabama
With thanks to my son James for his fine editing skills!
Alas, my camera just can’t cope with the brightness changes, or keep up with the flashes!
The strobes are actually set for four flashes each time.
Thanks must go out to a blogger for publishing his thorough analysis of a certified LED strobe product from a big name company. He verified our thoughts that there were also some other products out there that weren’t even bright enough to put on the back of a bicycle these days, let alone an aeroplane.
The figures he derived from this analysis became the minimum goals for light output for our product.
