Monday, November 19, 2018

What To Know About Helipad Lighting Suppliers

By Andrew Jackson


Heliport refers to a designated area on a structure, water, or land where helicopters use for landing and taking off. In other terms, a heliport is a small airport that is specific for utilization by helicopters and other vertical lift platforms. The term vertical lift platforms are platforms that take off and land vertically from the ground. They do not need to cover some horizontal distance in order to land or take off from the ground. Useful information regarding helipad lighting suppliers.

Usually, designated heliports in most cases have multiple or one touchdown or liftoff areas. These heliports might have limited facilities like fuel sources and hangars. Platforms located in large towns or cities could contain facilities for forwarding and clearance of cargo as well. Advocates hoped that the introduction of heliports would become a widely adopted idea, but that has not happened up to today.

Among the major reasons for heliports not being widespread is that much noise is produced by helicopters when taking off or landing. The levels of noise pollution generated by helicopters are not suitable in urban places. Devastating noise levels can be caused by a fleet of helicopters. For this reason, even major cities have restrictions on heliport numbers. Besides being limited in number, their sizes are small too.

Several other terms have been coined to refer to heliports. These terms include helipad, helideck, and helistop. In order for helistops to be useful at night when visibility is low, they must be installed with lighting that meets specific aeronautical standards. Aeronautical standards are very strict and must be met by all helistops. It is the responsibility of the local aeronautical body in the area to ensure that helipads in that region have the necessary lighting.

Installation of perimeter lights is usually done around TLOF area. There are instances where the lights are flush installed on the TLOF while in other cases they may be mounted off perimeter of TLOF on short concrete or metal extensions. There are two lighting choices available apart from the TLOF area the FATO area can also be lit.

There are conditions that should be met if the FATO area is to be lit. Both FATO and TLOF areas can be lit if certain environmental conditions are prevailing. Generally, the helicopter should not be obstructed when taking off or landing by lights used in the heliport.

To prevent lighting from being an obstruction, certain laws have been enforced in the United States. For instance, the lighting is not allowed to extend more than 2 inches above the FATO or TLOF. Another rule requires that all lights used on the perimeter must be green in color. Amber and incandescent lighting have been in use before, but they were determined to interfere with night vision goggles.

Surface operation is enhanced on heliports by use of flood lights. However, flood lights must be limited to ground operations only because they can interfere with flight operations. LEDs have a longer life cycle and have lower power requirements, which are the two factors that have caused their widespread adoption.




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