I guess these do provide extra visibility, in the particularly important forward direction. But I can’t find any in-depth reading material on their effects. I’m especially interested in how birds react to them. I remember reading (forgot where) that they are particularly susceptible to changes in patterns.
For night landings I suppose one switches the wig-wag function off on short final?
There should not be an issue of serious degradation of durability of the (LED) lights I suppose.
I think I’ll write a letter to EASA suggesting them to make them mandatory, if only for X-mas.
AFAIK, in the experimental world, wig wag is controlled by a box which switch to ON when below a speed or altitude threshold.
VPX does it for instance.
Used LED wig-wag lights a few weeks ago at night. Rather annoying light effects bouncing off anything and everything. With the strobes as well, it was certainly OTT.
I suspect they’re better suited to day flying for increased visibility in the circuit.
It seems a strange thing to do. Having the twingtip lights synced would be more sensible (as I believe airliners have) but in many cases running the sync wire through is a lot of work.
New 172s come with these from the factory.
