On Monday, January 2, 2017 at 8:53:09 AM UTC-5, wrote:
My club recently had its first wingtip damage from a runway light. These lights stick up about a foot or so and are sometimes hard to avoid.

What solutions have other soaring clubs found to deal with them?

I was thinking that it maybe a good idea to put a deflector in front of the lights. If the wing is going to hit, it would hopefully deflect the wing up and over the light.
I was hoping the right design might not obscure the light any more than a tall weed. What are chances of getting something like this approved or accepted by either an airport authority or the FAA?

My first two concepts we
1. form a steel rod that goes over the light, and then front and back ends form spikes that could be hammered into the ground.
2. A wedge shaped cut plexiglass/acrylic sheet that the light could pass through. The bottom would have flanges heat formed to a allow it to be secured to the ground.

Please post any feedback or thoughts on if there is some solution to help protect glider wings.

I made simple sketches here, Please forgive the really crude drawings:

https://docs.google.com/presentation...it?usp=sharing

a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DhfbsEk49m-3LS-Vzs8YO-487Gv1YDjZNICBma72tlE/edit?usp=sharing"concept drawings/a

Chris

Our club has removable barriers over end marking lights at one end of our field so we don't rip them out with tow ropes. Not a landing area but short of it for tugs.
We put low light plastic cones over the lights near our operating area to make them much more visible. This is effective in preventing almost all hits. They also seem to moderate damage when hit happens which is now very rare.
We put all this stuff(3 barriers and about 12 cones) up each day. Takes 5 minutes on the golf cart.
Experience shows that if lights can be seen they get avoided pretty much all the time.
We operate in grass parallel to the paved runway having lights.
UH