Airline Interior Lighting

phoenix28 · Post by **phoenix28** » 06 Oct 2005, 08:06

I have been doing this study on airline interiors lighting and have found very little information available about the same....could anyone chip in as regards the legacy of airline interior lightings and provide some source about it......... and yea whats your opinion of the aircraft manufacturers and companies alike suddenly warming up to LED's in a big way, is it the real thing signifying a paradigm shift in airline lighting or is it just a passing fad???

Thanks!!

lastrow · Post by **lastrow** » 06 Oct 2005, 08:57

my opinion is that very positive because using them results in less energy consumption (creating light by directly emitting the matching photons - can't go any better, usually less than 10% of a comparable bulb), higher reliability: will burn much much longer and ususally you use an array of them, thus if one tiny guy broke you won't realise it. and it is smaller.

I think the downside so far with light emitting diodes were the available colours and the luminosity which has much improved the past years. Then, the LEDs work usually on low currents - thus, they did not have their breakthrough for lighting your living room yet.

regarding the colors red and green were out for quite a while after then someone managed to bring blue and now we have the white ones. I have found a nice page where it is explained briefly how to get white:

http://www.trainweb.org/girr/tips/tips7 ... _tips.html

I think osram opto semiconductors is large supplier of these (however, I haven't heard about them when equipping airliners)

http://www.osram-os.com/

so, as a conclusion: indeed, it looks like a big change.

-lr.

phoenix28 · Post by **phoenix28** » 06 Oct 2005, 11:48

Thanks lastrow for the reply.

I would be glad if anyone could discuss the airline interior lighting as it is today in aircraft. Yes, LED's are likely to make a positive difference or atleast seem like to make, but as regards the present state of interior lighting its pretty much fluorescent based. fluorescent based lighting are known for their power consuming capability adding to the airline's cost and more so they require higher maintenance costs, but still airlines have to live with it, not out of choice but out of a lack of reliable and sustainable alternative. Am i right on this?

Also does anyone know how much an airline has to spend on its interior lighting systems??

Pilots and experts pls chip in...!! Thanks

lastrow · Post by **lastrow** » 06 Oct 2005, 12:14

well I see. as a first step you might find this one intersting:

http://www.arinc.com/amc/reports/2005/p ... alegre.pdf

-lr.

regi · Post by **regi** » 06 Oct 2005, 16:17

maybe some manufacturers here?
http://www.aerospace-technology.com/con ... /interiors

vc-10 · Post by **vc-10** » 06 Oct 2005, 19:47

VW uses them for brake lights on the new Golf Plus, (Went into the VW garage the other day to look at the Sharan to replace out useless Peugeot 807) and The salesman said they use them because it doen't matter if one goes out of 100 unlike a normal bulb. They are very small but give good light, and are cheap to run. You can leave one connected o a standard 9V batyery with a resistor and it will stay alight for 3 years!!!!!!!

phoenix28 · Post by **phoenix28** » 06 Oct 2005, 20:35

VC-10 there is lot of of engineering commonalities between an aircraft and automotive OEM. But the level of complexities is what which differentiates and makes them a not-so comparable fraternities. So i have genuine doubts as regards how right is it to say that what is correct and works for an VW would also work for an 737. More so the opportunity cost of an LED not working in a car is much much lower than it would be on airline flying at 30000 feet. Mate it better work!!

While automotives has evolved and integrated cutting edge technologies like telematics etc the same cannot be said of the aircraft OEM's. Airline lighting has pretty much remained the same for decades, Inflight entertaiment hasnt witnessed any major surprises and ofcourse as regards other interior segments like seats, lavatories etc...well how much have they changed????

Vinnie-Winnie · Post by **Vinnie-Winnie** » 06 Oct 2005, 22:23

Hi vc-10,

Have a look at this article from the economist: http://www.economist.com/business/displ ... id=4462477

the future looks bright

lastrow · Post by **lastrow** » 06 Oct 2005, 23:53

Hi Jan,
I must admit I am not an engineer for aircrafts neither for cars. But your statement about the "ampleness" of energy both onboard of cars and airliners raises questions: actually I have read many times that car designers suffer from the raising consumption of electrical energy - due to a raising number of electrically driven systems on board. So they try to save the energy consumption. They are also increasing the battery which they do not like because it results in a increase of weight.

I also argue that a similar reason applies for the airliners: could be that the differencs between conventional systems and LEDs is not that large. But to my understanding you have hundreds of passengers, hundreds of top lamps, hundreds of signs etc. so I am tempted to guess, lowering the total energy consumption for illumination on a more than 50% basis would make a difference.

However I agree the main reason might be robustness. Looking at the slides, for which I have mentioned the link from Airbus, lower maintainance intervals seems to be also a pro for LEDs.

-lr.

vc-10 · Post by **vc-10** » 07 Oct 2005, 09:12

In the afor-mentioned VW, there is the option of a second battery and this must be ordered with some of the optional extras.

VW use them in the Golf Plus for a number of reasons. First, the apparently react quicker to the driver pressing the brake pedal. Secondly, they are very cheap, about 10p per bulb. These just plug in, with no other problems. The light clusters are also thiner, which means that the boot is marginaly bigger. I belive that BMW also uses LEDs for the sidelights on the new 5er

The Economy of an LED info actually came from my DT teacher at school.

The simialarity is the shear number of LEDs means that when one dies then it is virtually no difference. I was on a knackered Caledonian Tristar and one of the Strip lights had died and was flicking on and off for the whole flight. with an LED there is no such problem.