I'm not sure which lights you are referring to. Tip strobes are anticollision
lights, and are required on newer aircraft. Wingtip landing lights can be added
to cherokees, and those can be made to flash with a flasher unit such as the
Avtek pulsar. Both the strobes and the wingtip landing lights, as well as the
flasher are STC'd for PA-28's and PA32's. I installed both the strobes and the
wingtip landing lights on my '65 Cherokee Six 6 or 7 years ago. If you have the
fuel tanks out for service bulletin 1006 (spar corrosion inspection), it is
fairly easy to add the lighting. If not, then I imagine it would be next to
impossible to pull the wiring through the wing.

I put on Whelen comet flash tip strobes. Whelen holds an STC for them. I think
there is also an STC for aeroflash brand strobes. When I put mine in, the
strobe kit was a few hundred $ (check aircraft spruce or chief aircraft for
pricing). Strobe installation involves mounting a power pack under the seat or
two power packs, one in each wingtip, pulling wires through the wings, along the
left wall, and adding a switch to the panel. In my case, I replaced the
rotating beacon switch with a split rocker switch labelled for strobes and
rotating beacon. That was exactly the same size as the original switch. I think
I got that from A/C Spruce. I got combined strobe & nav light assemblies that
fit on in place of the old nav lights. I think there is also a conversion kit
that replaces the metal cover on the nav light, but that set up involves
machining the backer plate. Pulling the wires is the hard part. I enlarged the
tooling holes in the wing ribs, put grommets in those and pulled the wire
through them. All told, the strobes took 6-8 hours to install, not counting the
time to remove and replace the fuel tanks. I also added the extra inspection
cover between the two inboard ribs per SB988(?), which made pulling the wires
through that part easier.

The wing tip landing lights are made by several vendors. My Cherokee Six has
the fiberglass tip tanks, so my only option was a set of lights made by skycraft
in new hampshire. Install for these lights involve cutting rectangular holes in
the sheet metal leading edge of the wing and riveting in the lamp assembly,
doublers etc. The skycraft kit was $695, which included the lamps, and all the
lamp assembly parts, instructions, a special router bit for cutting the wing,
the STC paperwork, wire and a switch. The STC has the wire routed in alumimum
tubing clamped into the aerilon gap, so you don't have to have the wings opened
up to add these. Since mine were already open, we pulled the wire together with
the strobe wires through the grommets in the wing ribs. I think the install
time was something like 15 hours for these. For cherokees without fiberglass
tip tanks, there are replacement wing tips available with landing lights in
them. Lopresti and AMR&D(?) both have them, and I think there is another as
well. I don't have any experience with those, but I imagine the install time is
considerably less since there is no sheet metal work. The kits cost about 3x
the skycraft kit, so the overall cost is probably about the same, plus with the
new wing tips there is more to paint to finish the job. (the skycraft kit only
has a thin metal frame showing on the outside of the wing, which you can get
away with leaving unpainted. The inside of the cutout gets painted flat black
to prevent distracting reflections). The wing mounted lights are a huge plus on
the cherokee Six, because for that airplane, the original nose light mostly just
lights up the pavement in front of the plane that is obscured by the long nose.
Plus the wing tip lights are not subject to the vibration that the nose light
is, so they last much longer. The skycraft lights are certified wth Q4509
halogen lights. I've got several hundred hours on those lamps, which are on a
recognition flasher on every flight.



Frode Berg wrote:

Hi!

We are doing some major upgrade to our Piper Arrow 180hp.

We are putting in a factory overhauled engine, upgrading the interior to
leathcer (seats, panels, new carpeting), installing an S-TEC system 20 one
axis autopilot, as well as a new Bendix/King KI208 indicator.

This airplane did not come standard with the flashing white lights on the
wingtips like the newer ones have.
I guess they are called "anti-collision" lights or something like this?

Is it possible to install these to this plane? Is there a mod for it? Anyone
have any experience with installing them? What are the costs involved in
this?

Also, do they really make a big difference in visibility to other planes up
there?
I somehow think I see planes easier that have them on, but I rarely get the
chance to see two planes at the same time while flying, one with and one
without, so I can't really say...

Anyway, any opinions welcome, also ane web sites to piper parts and mods
would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Frode Berg
LN-LMR

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