Page 8 - May 25

checks. In addition to requiring the light for the above
flights, the FAA recommends that landing lights be
on when below 10,000 feet as an additional collision
avoidance measure.
Not only do lights make you more visible to aircraft
in the vicinity, but they also make you more visible to
birds. In the 90s, I helped collect and compile results
from a survey a major airline conducted among its
pilots to determine what effect lights had on bird strike
occurrences. It turns out that planes with their taxi
and landing lights on reported far fewer bird strikes
than those that had their lights off. Those with pulsing
taxi or landing lights reported even fewer still. Besides
making yourself easy to see to other traffic, do yourself
a favor and increase your odds of avoiding a costly bird
strike incident as well.
I mentioned in the first sentence of this section that I
use my lights differently when approaching uncontrolled
versus controlled fields. When approaching either,
wingtip-mounted taxi lights go on below 10,000 feet,
per the FAA’s safety recommendation. If you’re in a
retractable gear aircraft with your taxi and landing lights
attached to your nose wheel, this advice means little to
you, as you’re not likely to have your gear extended as
you pass through 10,000 feet. Flip the switches anyway,
as they’ll be visible soon enough.
My exception to this below 10,000-foot rule on the
landing light is when I land at a controlled field. In
that instance and that instance only, I do not touch my
landing light until I have heard the words “cleared to
land.” When those words are read back, I flip that switch.
This little practice has saved me some on-air time when
I’m on short final and can’t remember whether I received
the landing clearance. A quick look at the switch that
I only turn on when the landing clearance is received
affirms what I could not recollect. If I see that switch in
the off position during that final approach check, I ask
for my landing clearance from the controllers.
Strobe/Anti-collision lights: Ugh. These lights are the
ones that annoy me the most when used improperly. Let
me be very clear: I don’t care if you have LED lights that
will never burn out and have new timing mechanisms
that make them only slightly less obnoxious when viewed
from close up by an unsuspecting passerby or low-sitting
aircraft. These lights should go on when you are ready
to roll onto the runway and back off as soon as you clear
the runway after landing. They should never be left on
while taxiing, sitting on a ramp or in a run-up area.
Please, for the love of all things shiny and upright, stop
blinding the people around you on the ground.
As you can see, I clearly love rules, customs and
mental cues centered around aircraft lighting. From
my perspective, they are built-in tools in our toolbox
that can be used on an aircraft in meaningful ways. If
they were meant to come on and stay on, they would
be tied to the master battery switch and wouldn’t have
their own on/off switch! Feel free to try to change my
mind … Joe attempts it regularly.
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­ KING AIR MAGAZINE MAY 2025