Duchess lights help

[Drew H]

Hi All,

I'm working on a Duchess to use as AI traffic in MS Flightsim, FS2004.
It's going pretty well so far, but I cannot find any info online about what lights they have and where, apart from the obvious nav lights on the wingtips.
I'm not even sure which lights on the wings are landing lights or some may be taxi lights?
In addition, are flaps generally used to takeoff in this aircraft, and if so, how much flap? (a percentage would be easiest to translate into FS)

I've been trying to get out to Bankstown or somewhere to answer these myself, but without a licence, getting there is proving troublesome.

Any assistance appreciated!


Drew

Silly censor setting fixed! -mod

[Andrew S]

I have a fair bit of time on the Beech Duchess and it has the following lights:

Red and Green Wing Tip Lights
1 White Strob on each of the wing tips
2 White Lights (in the single casing) on the right wing leading edge (landing and taxi light) both lights for landing, one for taxi.
Red Beacon light on the top of the tail

Flaps are up for take-off unless a short take off is required then first stage of flap can be lowered, as a percentage it would be about 33.333% or about 10 degrees.

[Drew H]

Thanks for the reply Andrew, most helpful!
When you say the white landing and taxi light in the one casing on the right wing, is this the same on the left wing? ie, one light on in each wing casing for taxi, and all four lights on the wings on for landing?

Also, with regard to the red beacon on top of the tail, is this located right on the top of the tail as in this pic?
Or is that small protuberance on the very top aft corner of the tail a light?
I'm a bit confused, as i noticed many of them don't have a light sitting on top of the tail like the one pictured.

Thanks too for fixing the censor and the consequent tidying of my post, mod.



Drew

[Andrew S]

Thats no problem.

No, It is just two lights on the leading edge of the right wing, there are no lights on the leading edge of the left wing. The inner light is for taxi and both are for landing.

Each duchess has slightly differant placements of the red beacon, some have them and some don't, another place for it is in the centre and front of the t-tail. Also some duchess have a small white light that is in the middle of the t-tail at the rear and is in the horizontal plane.

[Grahame Hutchison]

Hi Drew,

I was out at Bankstown this morning and this shot might be of help. The wing tip strobes are aft of the navagation lights. On this particular aircraft I cannot see the tail mounted red beacon, it has one mounted mid cabin between the two aerials (see profile shot). This aircraft is VH-WEC and I have also included the full profile shot, hopefully of some use to you.

[Hugh Jarse]

What a blast from the past Grahame - I did my Class 1 Instrument Rating in that thing back in 1984!! (back when you had to renew every 6 months). That's one old Duchess!

[Grahame Hutchison]

Hugh, its a 1979 model, serial ME-257 and registered to Basair, so only 5 years old when you were in the left seat.

30th Birthday next year and still looking quite good.

[Adam P.]

I didn't think there was such a thing as a 'new' Duchess...

[Drew H]

Thanks for the replies all, it's pretty much sorted now. Looks like I may need to make a variation or two with the beacon in different spots.

The landing/taxi lights I'm still not 100% certain on, we are talking about the same lights, right? the casing on the leading edge/underside of each wing, near the tips, as evident in this pic ?

[Grahame Hutchison]

Correct