Talk:Pilot-controlled lighting

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Proposal to Change Article Title[edit]

ARCAL is an accepted term, which refers to a pilot controlled lighting system, but I have never seen the acronym PCL, nor PAL (at least in this context). The reference given to the FAA AIM does not use the PCL or PAL acronyms, nor does the ref to the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge. The ref to Pilot Controlled Lighting is in fact only to a forum discussion, with the title chosen by someone who is asking about the subject - hardly a basis for the title of this article.

My intention is to change this article's title to ARCAL. Comments?

In the meantime, I will also do some editing - here in Canada there are two types of ARCAL in use - types J and K. There is also incorrect info regarding the lighting always being on the same freq - that is actually stated in the FAA AIM, however, it is not the case in Canada, so maybe not elsewhere, either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HiFlyChick (talk • contribs) 17:02, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

At first I assumed that ARCAL would be correct but it's not so clear cut. Looking at the Canada Flight Supplement shows no usage of PCL. PAL is used to mean "Peripheral station" and ARCAL as "Aircraft Radio Control of Aerodrome Lighting". Looking at the FAA manual used as a reference I see they use none of these terms and the closest they come to any term is "Pilot Control of Airport Lighting" as a section header. The Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge uses "pilot controlled lighting" but not capitalised. I looked at Google and got Pilot Controlled Lighting (64,500), Aircraft Radio Control of Aerodrome Lighting (4,150) and Pilot Activated Lighting (9,660). Of course those are raw numbers and I didn't check to see how valid the entries were. Looking in Google Scholar I got Pilot Controlled Lighting (19), Aircraft Radio Control of Aerodrome Lighting (2) and Pilot Activated Lighting (1). Having taken a better look at the PCL entries I think that most of them use the uncapitalised version, which would mean that the page should be somewhere else be it Pilot controlled lighting or ARCAL. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 22:22, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Canadian AIM mentions ARCAL - I wonder if the US AIM does too... (will check when I get a chance, unless someone knows off the top of their head any ref to it) HiFlyChick (talk) 22:43, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Checked the US AIM - section 2-1-8 is called Pilot Control of Airport Lighting, which seems to be simply a topic title. Strangely enough, the ARCAL acronym is not used, but it does reference the airport facility directory and says that it will have further info (much like the Canadian AIM mentions the CFS). The US AIM does not mention any other acronyms that refer to control of lighting (PCL and PAL are not used). When I check the FAA Airport/Facility Directory, I again found no reference to ARCAL, simply the direction "ACTIVATE... - CTAF" with the list of lights it activates being listed after the word activate.

Sorry, folks, my mistake - looks like ARCAL is a Canadian term (very common up here), so the article needs to be rewritten with a less Canadian slant... HiFlyChick (talk) 22:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tower nuisance lighting when aircraft not nearby[edit]

Radio tower lighting being active all the time when planes are not nearby, is a waste of energy, an eyesore for amateur astronomers, and for people who live near towers.

Various community groups are working to pass local ordinances to restrict tower height limitations to be below 200 ft, so that towers are exempt from FAA aircraft lighting requirements.

I have heard somewhere that eventually radio tower lighting may be changed to be pilot controlled, so that it activates only if a plane is going to be in the vicinity of the tower, and only stays on for a few minutes after the transmitter leaves the area. This would allow tall towers to remain dark until the lighting is actually needed by pilots.

This might also possibly be remotely controlled by air traffic controllers, to briefly light up towers when a high altitude commercial aircraft will be passing overhead.

I am trying to find more information, which leads me to this article.. -- DMahalko (talk) 16:46, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wow - I have not heard of that, and for taller towers, that is a truly scary and bad idea. If a pilot knows that a tower is nearby but can't see it, even without a light he/she will give it a wide berth. The whole point of having a light on a tower is that a pilot could (a) misidentify their location (i.e. how close they are to a tower), or (b) be totally unaware of the tower. While both are errors on the pilot's part, you have to ask yourself, are they errors that should be potentially punishable by death? (which ultimately is the worst case scenario of an aircraft hitting a tower). I can't believe that the light on a tower draws that much electricity that it would cost that much money, especially compared to the cost of an aviation accident, and I'm sorry, but the other things you mentioned are inconveniences at best.HiFlyChick (talk) 18:21, 6 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

History[edit]

Where and when was Pilot-controlled lighting first introduced? The article currently seems to say nothing about this. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:24, 28 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]