# ANY idea how powerful helicopter spotlights are?



## treasurydept (Oct 27, 2007)

Last night I was staying down at an apartment by the beach and there was a young guy who went night swimming and must have gotten caught in a rip (I saw the report on the news the next morning). There was a helicopter flying up and down the coastline for a couple of hours with its spotlight on searching for him. The beam colour was whitish blue so I assume it was some sort of HID. 

Does anyone have ANY idea or care to hazard a guess as to how powerful these spotlights are in terms of lumens?


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## PhillyRube (Oct 27, 2007)

Here is a spec sheet from the Nightsun folks. We have one mounted on each of our 2 Jetrangers....

http://ils.spectrolab.com/pr_detail.asp?wp=pr_ss_nightsun.asp&pd=1

Also, here a couple on sale on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Spec...002QQitemZ120175416036QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Spec...016QQitemZ260173352083QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW


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## LuxLuthor (Oct 27, 2007)

WOW....65 Amps nominal cranking through that 1600W bad boy!


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## PhantomPhoton (Oct 27, 2007)

But I don't have a sufficient power supply. :mecry:

But, one day... one day I'll get a monster like that!

Thanks for the specs link.


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## treasurydept (Oct 27, 2007)

Pardon my ignorance, but do you have any idea what these measurements would convert into in terms of lumens? For a wild example, would something like a Microfire K3500 HID put out anything NEAR as much as one of these spotlights, or am I way off?


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## Patriot (Oct 28, 2007)

treasurydept said:


> Pardon my ignorance, but do you have any idea what these measurements would convert into in terms of lumens? For a wild example, would something like a Microfire K3500 HID put out anything NEAR as much as one of these spotlights, or am I way off?


 
A K3500 would only be a tiny fraction compared to a police helicoper light. There was a thread about this 5 or 6 months ago and BVH or Dan chimed in and said those lights were in the hundreds of thousands of lumens if I remember right..... The benifits of serious power supplies.


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## ez78 (Oct 28, 2007)

I think one could power those from large lead acid batteries or maybe generator is needed... I would quess the Nightsun has about 70000 lumens output.


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## RDZombie (Oct 29, 2007)

I don’t know how my ORC Illuminator compares to the spectra but I run mine off of 2 car lead acids in series for 24V, runs fine


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## PhillyRube (Oct 29, 2007)

This is the brightness: 32 Lux (2.9 ft-cd) @ 1 km. 

Someone wanna translate?


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## Patriot (Oct 29, 2007)

I'll bet Ra could translate that for us, along with many other brilliant CPFers.


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## Nitro (Oct 30, 2007)

PhillyRube said:


> This is the brightness: 32 Lux (2.9 ft-cd) @ 1 km.
> 
> Someone wanna translate?


 
I'll guess 32,000,000 lux @ 1 m.


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## spyderknut (Oct 30, 2007)

My local PD quotea 30,000 candlepower


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## LEDcandle (Oct 30, 2007)

If a 35w handheld HID is in the 3-4000 lumen range, what do you think 1600w puts out??  

There are some CPFers here who own 1-2kw tank lights and other searchlights. 
Maybe you can get them to try getting an estimate lumen figure with a DIY milk carton litebox :laughing:


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## LED61 (Oct 30, 2007)

Patriot36 said:


> A K3500 would only be a tiny fraction compared to a police helicoper light. There was a thread about this 5 or 6 months ago and BVH or Dan chimed in and said those lights were in the hundreds of thousands of lumens if I remember right..... The benifits of serious power supplies.


 
From those posts I also remember the price was well over 25 grand !!!


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## kakster (Oct 30, 2007)

LEDcandle said:


> If a 35w handheld HID is in the 3-4000 lumen range, what do you think 1600w puts out??
> 
> There are some CPFers here who own 1-2kw tank lights and other searchlights.
> Maybe you can get them to try getting an estimate lumen figure with a DIY milk carton litebox :laughing:



HIDs give about 60-70 lumens per watt, more if pushed harder.

However, they dont go much higher than 100 watts, the kilowatt+ lights use Short Arc Xenon bulbs which give in the region of 30 lumens per watt.


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## leukos (Nov 1, 2007)

Here's a thread with beamshots about the Sleeper, a handheld airplane landing light: http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=55487 and of course the current thread on these lamps:http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=178176


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