# Helicoper and lights



## wuyeah (Dec 17, 2005)

Man, just finished a good chase on highway. I can careless about those intense chasing, what I could not refuse to notice (ever since i join this forum) Those spot lights on Helicoper are so GD bright!!! They looks pretty white to me. What are those lights they use on police/military helicopers??
LEDs? 

I know I should of focus more on purpose of the show, but.....Those lights looks fantastic to me. 

any one knows?? to ease my curiousity??


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## AJ_Dual (Dec 17, 2005)

I'm guessing the Spectrolab "Night Sun" spotlight is one of the more popular on police choppers. Whatever it is, no way it's LED, they're improving LED's all the time, but none come even close to an application like that yet.

My guess is Xenon short-arc or perhaps a really big HID (High Intensity Discharge. Like a really big version of the fancy new "blue" headlights you see on luxury cars.)

I'm downloading their PDF specs now. Let's see if I was right...

http://www.spectrolab.com/DataSheets/SX16/ILS_SX-16.pdf

Short-Arc Xenon it is!


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## nemul (Dec 17, 2005)

http://www.vrtulnik.cz/helo2295.jpg

SWEET!


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## PoliceScannerMan (Dec 17, 2005)

I love listening to the local police chopper on the Scanner. (Air 1)

-PSM


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## jclarksnakes (Dec 17, 2005)

When I was flying in the 2nd Armor Division at Fort Hood in the mid 1970s we had a giant light on one of our OH-58s. We flew a mission with the MPs using the light. I do not remember what kind of bulb it used. I think it must have been prior to HID technology and may have been Xenon or Mercury Vapor. It was supposed to produce a couple million candlepower. It drew a lot of electrical power and several times it overloaded the generator on the aircraft and caused maintenance problems. The light itself was aircooled and would quickly overheat if left on for very long at a hover. It could be remotely aimed and focused. The company that made the light was trying to get civilian Police departments interested in it and several times we had civilian LEOs ride along with us on our Skywatch missions using the light. The light was very effective in following people who fled on foot or in vehicles from the MPs. 
jclarksnakes


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## JimmyB (Dec 17, 2005)

Our department helocopter has a 30 million candlepower light. I believe it's a Night Sun. It's really bright and white from the ground but from inside the helocopter it's a different look. Still bright but not like being on the receiving end. This is the best picture I had. The device in front of the light is a forward looking infrared. 

JimmyB


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## Lightraven (Dec 17, 2005)

Here's a good story about a bad cop relayed to me by a friend who was the helicopter observer--now a pilot (and former Green Beret officer, no less).

The agency had been tipped off to a dirty cop who was smuggling drugs. As is common, the agency had aerial surveillance up to avoid detection. The helicopter was shadowing the vehicle with the drugs at night, high up and out of sight.

However, the bad cop was pushing the accelerator and moving at a good clip in a remote area. The pilot became concerned that they might actually lose the guy. The decision was made to stop the guy. The helicopter hit the vehicle with its bright spotlight. The observer said he would have given anything to see the look on the face of that guy when that beam of light hit him from out of the sky. The brake lights came on as he tried to figure out how bad he was screwed.

With nowhere to run, the bad cop was stopped with duffel bags of marijuana. Now serving time in prison.


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## ledvador (Dec 17, 2005)

The buld used in these kind of spotlight is a Xenon arc lamp, the same is usualy use in the sky tracer (Big light, Space Cannon, STX, etc) with the range of power from 3 to 7kw but probably less in the shopper 1,2 or 1,8kw. This litle power is still impressive because the hellos's flying between 100~1200 feet when the sky tracer is visible from 2000m to 5000m.


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## Sub_Umbra (Dec 17, 2005)

Interesting thread. Those lights got an incredible amount of use in New Orleans after Katrina. _All night long, every night_ during the Forced Mandatory Katrina Evacuation. Although I saw them night after night I was actually only outside my house once when one lit it up. As previously noted it is quite spectacular to be on the receiving end...and we weren't up for any real close up scrutiny -- the beam just passed over us on a fly-by.

I can see where it must be *very disturbing* to find yourself as the main object of interest of a helo equipped with one.


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## igabo (Dec 18, 2005)

Might not be totally on topic, but does anyone know anything about the bulbs used in Airport light beacons? I was driving by Moffet Federal Airfield a few miles away one night, and saw what looked like an advertising spotlight, only going in circles, and with an incredibly brighter and wider beam, which seemed to be going in a flat circle. Second time it came around another incredibly bright blue flash; my dad was an air traffic controller a few years back and I asked him if he knew anything, but the only thing he knew is that different colors are flashed in cycles (Moffet's was White-Blue) and that all airports had them and used them at night.

Anyone know about these?


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## dfred (Dec 21, 2005)

A month or so ago I saw a USCG helicopter participating in what appeared to be a manhunt near my house. I often see them heading out for searches on the Lakes, but doing a night search over land is very unusual in this area. I went outside briefly when I first heard a chopper lingering in the area to see what was going on, but when it dawned on me they were doing a manhunt, rather than a water rescue, I decided to go back inside... Their lighting was indeed awesome and I'd they have pretty good IR stuff too.  

Heard later from a friend with the police dept. that it was a disoriented older person who'd wandered away from their home and not returned. Apparently they found them pretty quickly and all was well...





igabo said:


> Might not be totally on topic, but does anyone know anything about the bulbs used in Airport light beacons? I was driving by Moffet Federal Airfield a few miles away one night, and saw what looked like an advertising spotlight, only going in circles, and with an incredibly brighter and wider beam, which seemed to be going in a flat circle. Second time it came around another incredibly bright blue flash; my dad was an air traffic controller a few years back and I asked him if he knew anything, but the only thing he knew is that different colors are flashed in cycles (Moffet's was White-Blue) and that all airports had them and used them at night.
> 
> Anyone know about these?




Don't know exactly what they use, but probably bright bulb with a rotating fresnel lens, or possibly in some cases a large strobe with colored filters. Here's some more info about the various flashing patterns:

http://www.faa.gov/ATpubs/AIM/Chap2/aim0201.html#2-1-8


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## RebelRAM (Dec 22, 2005)

The light you saw at the airport that seemed to be rotating in a flat horizontal circle is called a "Rotating Beacon" It's to help pilots identify and locate airports at night. Different airports have different color patterns.

This page has spec sheets on different rotating beacon configurations
http://www.flightlight.com/airportlighting/pages/content.html

The colors and color combinations of lights for rotating beacons and their meanings are as follows:

* A lighted land military airport-Alternating dual peaked (two quick) white between green flashes.
* A lighted land civilian airport-Alternating white and green.
* A lighted water airport-Alternating white and yellow.

Those are just some of the patterns, there are more for heliports, and hospital helipads, and so on.


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