Wing Tips

At AirVenture 2001, I scrutinized even the smallest details on most of the completed Lancair airplanes that were in the Homebuilt static display area. I took close-up pictures of many details so I would be able to refer to them as needed when I was building my own Lancair.

I saw different ways people had finished the wing tip light lenses. Most of them were cut to fit, and held in place by screws. There was one Lancair IV that had particularly nice lenses. Pictured below is a lens that was not only cut to fit, the builder painted the edges to make it match the rest of the wing tip. Most builders do not take this extra step. I thought it looked very nice.

The molded wing tips that come from Lancair have a glare shield built into the wing tip. The purpose of this shield is to protect the pilots night vision when flying at night. At night, the light from the wing tip lights illuminates the lenses, which is then reflected back toward the cockpit. There is enough reflected light to substantially degrade the pilot’s night vision. Most Lancair builders seem to eliminate this shield.

One Lancair ES builder had added his own glare shield that looked nice. These appear to be removable.

The nicest wingtips I have seen to date on any ES are on Ed Rosiak’s Turbo Super ES. Mike Salzman took the following two digital pictures of Ed’s wingtips at a Lancair fly-in.

The glare shields are built into the wingtip. Judging by the reflection that you can see on the surface of the wing, the parts were shaped and sanded very nicely before painting. The shields also seem to be large enough to do an effective job. Hopefully Ed won’t mind if I “borrow” some ideas from his wingtips. I will make a point of asking Ed how he built these, and will post the information here.