Nayak Aircraft Services Group, headquartered in Cologne, Germany, has teamed with LoPresti Speed Merchants of Vero Beach, Florida, to certify, market, install and maintain in Europe LoPresti’s Boom Beam landing and taxi light systems, the only xenon landing and taxi lights available for business aircraft.

EASA approved the STC for installation of the lights on the Hawker 800 series in March last year and Nayak expects to receive approval for the Hawker 1000 within a few weeks. It also holds an EASA STC for the King Air 200, 300 and 1900 series turboprops and is considering obtaining EASA approval for the lights on Dassault Falcons and Cessna Citations.

Here at EBACE, Nayak (Booth No. 652) reported that NetJets Europe had commissioned the installation of the LoPresti lights on 40 Hawker 800XP and 850XPs. Twenty-five aircraft have already been modified.

According to Todd Lohenry, LoPresti manager of business development, the xenon lights are now standard on all new Hawker business jets, as well as all Adam Aircraft, Cirrus and Columbia airplanes. “In the U.S., the Boom Beam system is approved on 225 aircraft types and more than 72,000 models,” Lohenry said. It can also be field approved on virtually any other aircraft.

In addition to greatly improved lighting (up to three times brighter, according to LoPresti), xenon lights burn at a much lower temperature than standard incandescent lights and last much longer. This, according to Michael Gottwald, Nayak executive aircraft manager, means that installation of the lights can substantially reduce maintenance costs and downtime associated with landing and taxi light replacement. “With the stock landing lights on the Hawkers, pilots must remember to turn the lights off right after landing,” he explained. “If they forget, the lights can melt the lenses within 30 seconds. That costs $3,000 to repair.”

The LoPresti Boom Beam kit for the Hawker costs $13,000 ($8,000 for the wing landing lights and $5,000 for the taxi lights) and the company provides a five-year or 5,000-hour warranty. The lights are so cool that they be can be left on during taxi or standing without damage to the lenses.

Nayak Aircraft Services specializes in AOG-support and line maintenance for Falcons, Hawkers and Learjets with 425 employees on 22 airports around Europe. It has hangars in Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Cologne and Dortmund, Germany; and plans to open a new facility in Klagenfurt, Austria, later this year.