REFLECTOR:landing lights

[reflector@tvbf.org]

>> How effective are the lights on the strut during taxi?  Are they so low that most of the light is parallel to the ground which reduces runway/taxiway illuminating or are you able to aim it (them) to achieve that benefit.   I have the landing light in the nose with a little downward tilt.  It's okay for 30' in front of the plane but 50' in front, I need to put on 
my night vision goggles.<<

Chuck, 

The 172 I flew while I was building had this nasty habit of shining the lights up into the air while in the flare so I could see the runway fine in the approach but as soon as I started getting the nose up and feeling for the deck I had nothing but the runway lights in the periphial vision to tell how high I was. Bummer! :-) 

So I set up my main gears lights with a significant down angle so they would light up the runway while nose high. Then I set the nose light almost level so when I "level" on the ground the main gear lights were very short but the nose light reached way out there. 

Rob