| Hey SkyGeek help me choose a landing light bulb: regular or quartz? Which landing light bulb should you choose: "regular" or quartz? Great question. SkyGeek suggests two things: 1) Always have a spare bulb on-hand in the hangar. (If you're headed out and your bulb goes, that might be cause for a scrubbed flight. Seems a shame). 2) Use the quartz bulbs. Why? Read on… I don't know about you, but for a few extra dollars per year, after a great after-sunset landing, we really don't want to run off the taxi way before getting to ramp, risking our airplane (and our pride) just for the sake of an extra 10-15 bucks. So it pays to have a landing/taxi light that's long lasting. For example, the most common landing light bulb is the GE4509; about $9. It's quartz direct replacement (Q4509) : about $25. What the difference? It has a slightly narrower beam but operates more efficiently, according to GE, producing more candlepower than the GE4509 , at 140,000 CP versus 110,000 CP. The Q4509's beam is slightly narrower and more focused than the GE4509 but you probably won't notice much of a difference. But the real reason for going with the quartz is bulb life: You can expect at least 100 hours for the GEQ4509, but only 5-10 hours on the regular 4509. So for only a small amount of increased cost, you get over 10 times bulb life (and a brighter bulb) why bother with the regular? Skygeek doesn't think you should. (But if you decide to go the regular route, no worries, we have all those, as well as the quartz, in stock). | 
