BA A380 Manston

[oskafourzero]

Hi.

New to this Forum so Hello to you all,

Just thought i would share a couple of photo's i took on Wednesday, not perfect but it was a great sight for me as it was the first time seeing the A380 up close!





Cheers,

Roger.

[speedbird1960]

Nice photo of the BA A380 with the Red Arrows.

Thanks to Jordi for the link.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BPnyXXDCMAA965W.jpg:large

[Kelvin]

I was fortunate to be at Fairford yesterday.
A nice display with the A380 and Red Arrows together.
If only the blasted sun could have appeared at the same time as the A380!
Still, here's my contribution:

http://kelvindavies.co.uk/kelvin/categories.php?cat_id=120

[speedbird1960]

Great photos Kelvin, this one is my favorite: http://kelvindavies.co.uk/kelvin/det...image_id=11639

[Kelvin]

Looking back through my Fairford photos of the A380, I just noticed a peculiar thing;
On the sides there are 2 white indistinct marks which I initially thought were fag ash on my monitor!
Then I assumed they must be artefacts produced by the camera.
They are none of these; photos on other sites show the same white 'things' in exactly the same position.
On the right side, there is a mark just ahead of the letter 'S' of Airways and the second is below and forward of that one.
Any clues, anybody?

http://kelvindavies.co.uk/kelvin///details.php?image_id=11635

http://kelvindavies.co.uk/kelvin///c...php?cat_id=120 etc...

[speedbird1960]

Hi Kelvin.

You are not seeing something that is caused by your camera or tricks of light, what you are seeing is 'High-intensity discharge lamps (HID lamps)' which are visible above the fifth window on the lower deck, as in this photo:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Clients_A380.jpg

More about the lamps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-i...discharge_lamp

LED and High Intensity Discharge (HID) lighting
The A380 features a bulbless illumination system. LEDs are employed in the cabin, cockpit, cargo and other fuselage areas. The cabin lighting features programmable multi-spectral LEDs capable of simulating the cabin ambience illumination from daylight to night and various shades in between. HID lighting is used externally giving brighter, whiter and better quality lights. The two technologies used are far superior to the incandescent light bulb in terms of brightness and service life.

http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/coming%20of%20age/Airbus%20A380.htm

This photo gave me the clue that they are lights: http://kelvindavies.co.uk/kelvin///d...image_id=11640

[Kelvin]

Thanks for the info.
I see on the wikimedia photo the second lamp appears as part of the Air France logo.
But why have them at all?

[fungus]

Thanks for the info.
I see on the wikimedia photo the second lamp appears as part of the Air France logo.
But why have them at all?

Kelvin,

From what I've been reading on various websites about 'HID' lighting they are, as Speedy has pointed out, used externally (as well as internally) on an aircraft to provide anything from landing and taxi lighting to cargo area lighting, providing an excellent 'wide spread and bright' lighted area in comparison to other forms of lighting and seem to be the way of the future for lighting in general and as a former electrician I'll bet they draw far less power per unit than other types of lamp. The days of the old incandecant lamp are just about gone in any situation but my brother is the lighting expert, I'll ask him about them. They may be tied in with the landing lights as far as when they are 'lit' although it's difficult to say with any degree of certainty. I havent found anything specific yet in relation to those on the A380 but I'd suspect they are for taxiing and/or lighting the area in front of the wings if not the forward (or leading edge' in aviation terms) section of the wings and perhaps the engines themselves.

They can be incorporated in production or as an after market 'add-on' as this site seems to indicate;

http://xevision.com/hid_aircraft_kits.html

I've located the lighting panel in the cockpit of the A380 on the following link but my eyesight isnt the best as is my laptop quality. It's on the bottom (or forward) end of the overhead panel just above the old and ever so faithful magnetic compass (the red circle which is in the centre at the top of the pillar above the autopilot on the glareshield) and is under the engine start switch and between the wiper switches, titled 'EXT LT' (Exterior lights and 'INT LT' or Interior lights as there's two sets of them) if anyone may be able to see it better than I can (you can zoom in on it);

http://www.gillesvidal.com/blogpano/cockpit1.htm

Unfortunately all I can make out is 'on' and 'off', 'strobe' 'land' 'beacon' and 'emergency' with some switches seeming to have an intermediate position as well but I'll end up dizzy (o-0) and with a migraine if I try to concentrate on it any longer so good luck.

From another source I've just found that some of them are for the 'wing' lights etc and these may be the lights in question. The 'Nav' lights are above these also somewhere with the 'seatbelts' and 'no smoking' (why they still have this one is a mystery) on the panel on the right.

Here's a pic of the lighting panel close up I've managed to dig up (I know it's from Flight Sim but for our purpose it will suffice);

A380 LIGHTS.jpg

Take your pick as to which lights they may be. I can only tell which ones are they not. Since in your pics there are two lights in distinctly different locations, I'd think one would be the 'Wing' and the other 'Rwy turnoff' lights. Some lights may have pressure switches associated with them (much like the landing gear so they cant be retracted on the ground). For example those on the nose landing gear wouldnt want to be in the on position once the landing gear is retracted into the fuselage, however I've seen the main landing lights on the wings of an aircraft approaching 9,000ft over my place burning brightly showing beams out in front of it with the landing gear retracted (shame I never had the cam). The 'Nose' light may be one of those on the nose landing gear (the lower one just above the strut). Perhaps some one else can assist sorting these out.

In general the lights are as follows;
Strobe: ---The white flashing lights that are generally quite bright. (sorry for the 'technical' jargon)
Beacon:---The red light under the belly
Nav:-------Red-Left (port) wingtip, Green-Right (starboard) wingtip
Logo:------Lights up the tail logo
Landing:---Pretty obvious although varies from aircraft to aircraft and can include lights on the nosegear as well as wings.

By process of elimination it's looking like it may be those other two switches and lights mentioned above, assuming that the 'nose' light is on the nose landing gear. I await correction.

Hope this helps to answer why they have them and thanks for bringing it to our attention, very interesting topic
Regards,
Gregg

BTW, great pics, in fact the more I look at them the more I think they are stunning!

[Kelvin]

G'Day Gregg.
Thanks for the informative reply.
I am still baffled as the position of the lights would indicate that the lights will shine outwards, perpendicular to the aircraft. Unless the light itself is arranged within the fitting to allow it to shine forward or downward etc. In that case I would expect the fitting to be proud of the hull, a sort of convex lump.
Although I have never worked with aircraft, I once did a 5 year spell on an ATC project in Saudi Arabia (long time ago!) and I took a great interest in the aircraft coming in and out of a few of their airports. I found I could make a pretty good guess at the type of aircraft approaching at night by the lighting configuration. And this caused me to scratch my head a lot one night:
I was at Taif airport one night in 1980, parked short of the threshold of the active runway, waiting to cross (on my way to check the TACAN) and I saw the lights of an approaching aircraft some distance away. I remarked to my mate that this looked like a C130, based on the lighting configuration. Then I decided other factors just didn't add up for a C130 so we speculated on this and that type of aircraft and gave up trying to guess and just waited. Eventually this aircraft arrived, passing over the runway end lights at about 4 feet! I was convinced it was going to remove a lot of these lights, it was so low!.
Anyway, it turned out to be not a C130 or any other type of aircraft I was familiar with.
It was an Il76 of the Iraqi Air Force. When I asked the tower if I could now cross, he told me to wait as there was another on its way in.
These 2 aircraft loaded some knocked down Saudi F5s, left for Iraq later that night and 2 days later the Iraq/Iran war kicked off.
I digress. Back to lights etc.
While taking photos at Heathrow and Manchester recently, I noticed that landing lights may be switched on early or late. I had always assumed that they would be automatic, coming on when the gear was lowered but I eventually noticed they appeared to come on at different points in the approach. I even watched one (A BA A319) approach with no landing lights. This aircraft had flown a missed approach about 15 minutes earlier, having arrived with no gear down at all. When it returned for a second go, they had obviously wound the gear down manually (landing gear doors were still open) but there were no landing lights at all (http://kelvindavies.co.uk/kelvin///d...?image_id=9255).
I am glad you liked the photos. It is a pity that, following umpteen days of unrelenting sunshine, the weather chose to be difficult that day!
Cheers
Kelvin

Update!
I have just found a document from Airbus on-line that shows these lights are "engine scan lights and wing scan lights.
http://www.airbus.com/fileadmin/medi...0_20121101.pdf.
look for page 133 onward.
This also shows landing lights in the wing root.
This aircraft seems to have more lights than the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square!
I wonder what an engine scan light does?

[fungus]

Update!
I have just found a document from Airbus on-line that shows these lights are "engine scan lights and wing scan lights.
http://www.airbus.com/fileadmin/medi...0_20121101.pdf.
look for page 133 onward.
This also shows landing lights in the wing root.
This aircraft seems to have more lights than the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square!
I wonder what an engine scan light does?

Kelvin,

Just a wild guess but I'd think these lights would allow the pilots to visibly scan the wings and engines in the dark (I'm presuming they wouldnt be too useful in daylight and their only real purpose is to fool blokes like us). This all pretty much confirms that I was getting close to the answer, at least partly. Good work finding that and they sure do have a few lights!

Just noticed too, that document you've found goes on to indicate the area covered or 'scanned' by each light and I missed a couple of odd lights in my list such as the rear (white) nav light which is also the same on ships/boats (I once held a boat license).

Interesting story.
Thanks mate,
Regards,
Gregg

[Kelvin]

Well, it seems Airbus are quite keen on these lights.
I have just started uploading some of my photos from Fairford and discovered the A400M has pretty much the same thing.

http://kelvindavies.co.uk/kelvin/index.php

http://kelvindavies.co.uk/kelvin/details.php?image_id=11671