FAQs


  • Do your lights meet the light requirements of FAR 91.205?

    Absolutely!
    We based our design on an analysis of an already certified LED position/strobe light.  We must have shifted a decimal point somewhere in our calculations, because the first feedback we get from our customers is often along the lines of “Holy xxxx these things are bright!”
    With strobe and position LEDs on both forward and outward faces of the light bay, along with a matching tail strobe, our kits far exceed the minimum requirements for light visible from 360° around your plane.

  • Which lights should I choose for my RV-14?

    The RV-14 comes with two large light bays in the leading edges by default.
    If you’re building a tail dragger, two of our very popular Combo lights will give you excellent Landing lights, along with two correctly aimed Taxi lights on both sides of your plane.
    If you’re building a -14A, two of our Quad Spots perform the same role with both Landing and Taxi lights on both sides, but the taxi light does not tilt like it does for the Combo lights.

    Of course if you want the best of the best, two of our game changing Seven Stars or our Tail Dragger Max lights will take you from “Excellent” lights to “Outrageous!” lights.
    These really do turn night into day.

    Pair these with our The Original kit for your position and Strobe lighting.

    If you’re a “Too much is never enough” kind of person, join the growing group of customers who install our The Works kit in their wingtips as well as our landing lights!
    The Works kit also comes with extra features such as Flood mode and Wigwag mode built in.

    – Don’t forget to add a tail light if you don’t already have one.
    – Don’t forget to add a Wigwag Module or a Wigwag Switch if needed.
    – Our lights can be bolted directly to the W-00017 bracket already in the wings.

  • Which lights should I choose for my RV-10?

    You’re building a highly capable, top of the line aeroplane.   It deserves to be fitted with the best lighting available!
    Order the landing light mounting kit LL LENS KIT RV-10 from Van’s and install them in your wings.  It really is simple enough to fit these kits (measure thrice… cut once!), even to QB or already flying wings.

    Then choose either two of our Quad Spots or, for the best of the best lights available, two of our Seven Stars lights.  You will be very happy with the Quad Spots, and you will be blown away with the Seven Stars lights.

    Complete your lighting package with The Original kit for your wingtip Position and Strobe lights.

    If the thought of cutting into your leading edges makes you queasy, our The Works kit is your complete lighting solution.  Note however with the smaller light bay in the RV-10 wingtips, The Works kit give you lots of light down the runway for landing but you will end up with a darker spot directly in front of the plane.  Some pilots think this is an issue, while others are more than happy with how much light they now have!
    The Works kit also comes with extra features such as Flood mode and Wigwag mode built in.

    Don’t forget to add a tail light if you don’t already have one.
    Don’t forget to add a Wigwag Module or a Wigwag Switch if needed.

  • Which lights should I choose for my RV-6/7/8/9?

    Our The Original kit is a fantastic wingtip Position and Strobe lighting solution for your plane.

    We always advocate fitting some of our landing lights in the leading edges if you can, such as our popular Combo lights for your tail dragger or the Quad Spots for your –A model.
    Or, if you want the best of the best in lighting, choose our game changeing Seven Stars or Tail Dragger Max lights.

    If you don’t already have light bays, Duckworks Aviation makes leading edge light bay kits to suit all RV models.  These are easily retrofitted to flying wings. (Choose the round hole version).

    Don’t forget to add a Wigwag Module or a Wigwag Switch if needed.

    Alternatively, The Works kit is your complete lighting solution with Position, Strobe and Landing lights all mounted in the wingtips.  One light in each wingtip can also be tilted down for taxiing duties for your tail dragger.
    The Works kit also comes with extra features such as Flood mode and Wigwag mode built in.

    Don’t forget to add a tail position/strobe light to complete your light coverage requirements.

  • I have an RV-4/6 with flat-top/Hoerner wingtips. What are my options?

    If your wingtips already have corner light bays, or if you’re prepared to get the Dremel out and make some, you’re in luck!

    The Original kit option called W415FG is a kit that matches up with a fiberglass corner light bay mod kit that was once supplied by a boat parts manufacturer.  This light bay has an opening of 120°.

    The Original kit option called W415RA suits a mod kit that Van’s once offered long ago.  They had metal parts that you riveted into the wing to make a light bay and a cover lens to suit, which ended up being just big enough to fit your typical Whelen position/strobe light.  This light bay opens to 90°.
    The Flyleds boards are the same size as the original metalwork, so it’s actually just as easy to cut a light bay and bond in some simple tabs made from either scrap aluminium or fiberglass to hold the Flyleds kit.
    We have had the clear lenses re-made by the original manufacturer using the original molding piece.  Due to the shipping size these are only available from our distributors Flyboy Accessories in the US.  You can buy the W415 kits from them too.

    Information on the Van’s mod kit is available to download on the Info page of the Flyleds website.
    There is a picture of the 90° kit on the product page, but we think the installation could look a whole lot nicer than the example shown.  It’s a very low sales volume kit for us and no one has offered any better pictures (yet!).

    Another option is to buy or trade your wingtips to the later model W-715 “Batwings” or W715-1, either second hand or new from Van’s.  There is a market for your older wingtips!

  • Do you have an upgrade for my Duckworks/halogen lights?

    Certainly!
    The simplest landing light upgrade in our range is our Double Spotlight along with the optional Halogen Adapter panel.  This makes it a drop-in replacement for your rectangular H3 halogen lights and will give you a very worthwhile upgrade with at least twice the brightness, and far better focused clear white (not yellow) light.

    However note that your existing Duckworks light mounting bracket is also easily removed from the wing by undoing four screws. (Mark the existing aiming angle on the ribs before you undo it for easy re-installation.)  This then allows you to easily enlarge the existing hole in the bracket out on the bench to suit our Triple, Quad, Combo, Seven Stars or Tail Dragger Max lights.  Should take an additional 15 minutes to do.

    Which lights you choose depends on exactly where you’d like to be on the lighting scale: Choose from Good, Great, Excellent, or Outrageous!

  • Got WigWag?

    Having your landing lights flashing for each and every flight you make is the key to being seen in today’s increasingly busy skies.  The apparent movement of the light from wingtip to wingtip is far more eye catching than just having the landing lights turned on.  You will wonder where those close encounters with the birds went as well.

    * All Flyleds landing lights can be powered directly from a Vertical Power VP-X, or a Garmin GAD27 module, taking full advantage of their automatic wigwag switching based on airspeed.

    * The Advanced Control Module (ACM) that goes with your Advanced Panel from Dynon/AFS Advanced Flight Systems will also happily drive (and wigwag) Flyleds landing lights.
    We even make a plug and play control board for our Works and Essentials kit to suit the ACM so that the fuselage harness wiring remains essentially unchanged.

    * Our The Works kit has the wigwag function built in.
    * Our WigWag Module can be added to any aircraft and can be wired in a multitude of ways to suit your existing switch layout.
    * Our WigWag Switch is another single switch solution.

    * If you have an existing wigwag unit that has a mechanical relay in it (audible clicking) you’ll need to upgrade, as these rely on filament lamps for timing and won’t work with LEDs.

    Be seen, be safe!

  • Do you make external wingtip lights?

    At this point, no.  Our design relies on the enclosed light bay such as found on most Van’s RV’s.  All LEDs, especially ones bright enough for aircraft use, generate heat which in our case is dissipated into the extra space on the PCB.
    External LED lights that actually meet the TSO requirements are expensive because they have had some significant design challenges to overcome!

  • I already have a uAvionix Tail Beacon

    Note that the uAvionix Tail Beacon is a Position light only, with no strobe function.
    To complete the lighting requirements for night flight you need a tail strobe as well, such as our standard kit model tail light.

    Many customers have simply moved their Tail Beacon into a wingtip instead, where it can still happily maintain your ADSB-Out requirements, leaving room for our tail light on the rudder.

  • Do the wing LED boards come in colors other than white?

    We supply the circuit boards with white coating on them.  We encourage you to shape and fully assemble the light boards first, then mask the LEDs before painting the boards pink/blue/purple to match your plane.  The result looks rather neat and stealthy!

  • Do you make lights for a ….?

    We have made one-off designs for a couple of different planes in the past, however we are very reluctant to continue doing this.  Each wing design comes with significant design costs and time invested, which is hard to justify (and recoup) for one plane.  If you have a few friends with the same type, we might be convinced!

    We have had Bearhawk and SPA Panther customers make their own light bays and adapt our RV-7 (W-715-1) kits to their wingtips.  Perhaps you can do the same?