dimanche 3 août 2014

Helipad Lighting Is An Essential Feature All Landing Pads Must Have

By Imelda Reid


All helicopters utilize landing pads and platforms designated just for them. These pads have helipad lighting as well to aid in their safe and accurate usage. Additionally, all landing areas display large markings that relay necessary information to pilots who need a place to land.

The FATO area of a landing pad, known as the take-off area and final approach, encompasses the TLOF area, which is known as the touchdown and lift-off area. Both these areas each have their own set of lighting, which is arranged in either a circle or square shape. Official groups like the International Civil Aviation Organization and the Federal Aviation Administration have recommended that all landing lights be white. However, yellow and amber lights used to be the standard, and are still used by many locations.

The owner and jurisdiction of the pad determine the color. The lights themselves are light-emitting diodes and provide brightness control, though they used to be singularly incandescent. All lighting must be accompanied with a lighting wind cone as well. If needed, the owner may want to add surface flood lights or lead-in lights to the TLOF and FATO areas as well.

Lighting systems can also have visual slope guidance systems such as HAPI and PAPI installed. Although they are recommended by the authorizing organizations, many people don't choose to use them due to the high costs. Lighting systems usually utilize AC power instead of the common 6.6A direct current. Pilots can radio control the lighting as well with an automated ground-based controller.

Helipads can be located in all sorts of places. They can be on heliports or airports that have fuel, air traffic control, and service facilities. Most helipads, however, are placed in remote areas away from these larger places because of costs and spaces available. Many office towers have them as well on their roofs for air taxi services or for evacuation purposed in case of an emergency. Police departments use dedicated police helipads at heliports as well. Naval structures like ships and oil rigs also often have helipads for quick transport. These are called helidecks.

Most hospitals have helipads on the premises for MEDEVACs and air ambulances to come and go. These are useful in transferring patients to trauma units, and also patients from remote regions where capable hospitals are not available. Most hospitals in urban areas install these pads on the roofs.

Helipads are often issued location identifiers along with a large letter "H", but this isn't the case for every helipad. The FAA, ICAO, TC, and IATA are all U. S. Based organizations that issue these identifications. Helipads aren't restricted to one identifier, and may have multiple differently formatted and named ones.

Forest fire fighters sometimes build temporary timber-based helipads for easy access to supplies in remote areas. Rig mats can also be used to build a ground helipad. As you can tell, helipads don't have to be always built with concrete. However, they all have to be able to stay intact when extreme conditions like ice hit them. The rooftop pads are obviously a bit more vulnerable, and have 2 numbers signaling the amount of weight they can carry and the maximum rotor diameter it can encompass.




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