I want to put landing lights in the cowl on my 182k. It currently has, or I suppose had, the one light in the left wing. Adding Stene's quasar tips and looking to add cowl lights and wig-wag them. Looks like the nose bowl on a 180 might work, or maybe just add in some light buckets - anybody done this?

pilot wrote:I want to put landing lights in the cowl on my 182k. It currently has, or I suppose had, the one light in the left wing. Adding Stene's quasar tips and looking to add cowl lights and wig-wag them. Looks like the nose bowl on a 180 might work, or maybe just add in some light buckets - anybody done this?

It could be done, but you’ll definitely need to use LED bulbs. Because of the vibration, incandescent bulbs don’t last long in cowling.

But, frankly, unless you’re really handy, or you can find a complete lower cowl with light buckets, this will be a LOT of work, for minimal benefit. If you’ve got the Quasar tips, you’ll be pretty visible.

MTV

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A couple of whopping big LED's in the wing tips to generate the largest "lighted area" possible. Skip the wigwags, they might improve traffic awareness MAYBE but I don't feel they do anything for forward visibility at all. You should see what they do to a C-14 compass operating in true north of 60, yikes

I’ve definitely seen and avoided other aircraft because I saw their wig-wags and strobes.

Just a data point.

I like wig wags when approaching busy towers. It definitely makes it easier for ATC folks to find you fast, and in my experience, they appreciate that.

Collision avoidance? Maybe not so much. As dog says, if the other guy/gal is looking, they will definitely catch your attention quicker than static lights. If they're staring at that tiny Garmin 660 screen with ADS-B traffic enabled, they won't help at all.

In my experience on a 185 flashing the incandescent lights in the cowling helped extend their life some, but frankly, LED's are much better, at least for life span. ANd, for the price, they should last forever.

But, again, there's no way I'd cut up a perfectly good cowling just to add a couple lights, especially when you have those quasar tip lights.

MTV

For the same reasons you stated I wanted to add cowl lights. I did it for both looks and on airport. They made a big difference in taxi around a dark airport at night. This is a 182A model so the cowl bowl is slightly different then yours, I believe you will actually have more room on the engine side.

yikes

I'm not a fan of nosebowl mounted lights, but that installation looks really good.
And probably provide very effective lighting.