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Nottingham night lighting

PostPosted:Fri Jan 11, 2019 6:50 pm
by marioair
Anyone with experience of flying int Nottingham at night? AIP states it has PAPI but only low intensity edge lights and nothing else.

Re: Nottingham night lighting

PostPosted:Fri Jan 11, 2019 7:29 pm
by Nick T
There are lights but only available on request. I think they’re SMS controlled. You’re best off phoning the tower and having a chat with them, in all honesty.

(I’m based there but have never flown in using the runway lighting - I hve spoken to the airfield manager about it though and he said I’d need to have my mobile number added to the system for it)

Re: Nottingham night lighting

PostPosted:Fri Jan 11, 2019 7:52 pm
by marioair
I never think about it at largish fields but at smaller ones I’m not keen flying in at night unless I know how “good” the combination of lighting is

Re: Nottingham night lighting

PostPosted:Fri Jan 11, 2019 8:30 pm
by chevvron
marioair wrote:Anyone with experience of flying int Nottingham at night? AIP states it has PAPI but only low intensity edge lights and nothing else.

That's the standard minimum fit for for small airfields licensed for night time ops with some airfields having one intensity setting and others having variable intensity
Some airfields supplement this with green threshold lighting (either wing bars or across the end of the runway) and red runway end lights.
You might also get amber filters over the last few edge lights to denote 'the end of the runway is nigh'. :)
Acksherley I was wondering in these days of LED lights whether you could convert 'low intensity' to 'high intensity' by fitting LED bulbs instead of tungsten.

Re: Nottingham night lighting

PostPosted:Fri Jan 11, 2019 11:23 pm
by CloudHound
I did a CAA commissioning flight lighting check there few years ago.

DEA provided the DA-42 & Tollerton the mug of Tea. After some adjustments I was able to accept everything as fit for purpose.

Heathrow it ain’t but perfectly adequate, then, for VMC/Night VFR.

Re: Nottingham night lighting

PostPosted:Sat Jan 12, 2019 11:10 am
by kanga
CloudHound wrote:..
DEA provided the DA-42 & Tollerton the mug of Tea. After some adjustments I was able to accept everything as fit for purpose. ...


'adjustments' = 'teaspoon, please' ? :)

Re: Nottingham night lighting

PostPosted:Sat Jan 12, 2019 11:37 am
by CloudHound
If only!

Without going into detail, it actually took two visits and the adjustments where substantial. That said the final set up was as good as I've seen for the type of aerodrome. The guys there couldn't have been more accommodating and professional.

Oh, it wasn't the teaspoon more the lack of sugar.

Re: Nottingham night lighting

PostPosted:Sat Jan 12, 2019 11:59 am
by Bathman
Out of interest how much was the bill?

Re: Nottingham night lighting

PostPosted:Sat Jan 12, 2019 4:23 pm
by tomshep
LED lighting is not a direct swap in for conventional incandescent runway lamps. OS uses LED threshold, wing bar, taxyway and APAPIs as well as edge lights The whole lot lights up the field very nicely and consumes less than 200 Watts, allowing the system to be wired in ground and run from 35 Volts. All the individual arrays are controlled by radio from the tower but I was asked not to add a PCL function in order to discourage unauthorised use of the airfield.

Re: Nottingham night lighting

PostPosted:Sat Jan 12, 2019 5:07 pm
by CloudHound
CAA didn’t charge for my time conducting Flight Lighting Checks.

With a/c hire, overnight HOTAC and pool car diesel x 2, I guess my budget got a £4k hit.

Re: Nottingham night lighting

PostPosted:Sun Jan 13, 2019 7:29 am
by Bathman
Thank you CH and if they did get a bill for 4K I wonder how many years it would take to get there money back let alone make a profit.

Re: Nottingham night lighting

PostPosted:Sun Jan 13, 2019 8:55 am
by JodelDavo
Thank you CH and if they did get a bill for 4K I wonder how many years it would take to get there money back let alone make a profit.


The 4K would have been from the CAA Flight Lighting check budget, although the cost would have been passed on to the end user eventually by way of their yearly licensing charges.

Re: Nottingham night lighting

PostPosted:Sun Jan 13, 2019 9:13 am
by CloudHound
Correct, though my annual bid competed with the rest of Aerodrome Standards budget allocations. The revenue came from across inter alia charges levied on LHR, LGW & MAN downwards.

The reason Tollerton wasn’t invoiced, nor any other client, was the check wasn’t done at their request. It was licensing activity covered in this case by CAP168 Chapter 6 AGL para 12.7.4 “The CAA may choose to participate in or conduct such checks.”