A Case of Solar Helipad Lighting
Over the years, we have been receiving requests to provide solar helipad lighting. Due to the remote location and limited power supply, the client required a solar helipad lighting system could operate without the use of grid power, making it a reliable and cost-effective method for safe operations. Below is an example of our DOUBLEWISE solar helipad lighting system installed for the Aviation Forest-protecting Station in Zhalantun, China at June. 2023.
Background
The Zhalantun Aviation Forest Protection Station is located at the Hexi Airport in Inner Mongolia, China. Its duties include providing aviation support for forest and grassland fire prevention and control and aviation emergency rescue work, including forest and grassland aviation firefighting, air transportation of fire materials and personnel, forest fire detection, fire information collection, and aircraft flight support.
The aviation station has a runway with a length of 800 meters and a width of 30 meters, which can meet the take-off and landing needs of helicopters and some fixed-wing aircraft. A 40m×40m TLOF (helicopter take-off and landing platform) is set in the middle of the runway, and it is equipped with a 81.75m×10.5m taxiway, 5 parking positions, including 3 helicopter positions and 2 Class B fixed-wing aircraft positions.
Challenge
The helicopter airport is located in the Greater Khingan Range in northeast China, where extreme climate is prominent, spring droughts, severe convective weather and snowstorms are common, and visibility in winter is greatly affected by smoke and dust input from abroad, resulting in low visibility. During the approach, a suitable glide path must be used to avoid various obstacles. Due to the remote location and difficulty in power supply, they need a solar helipad lighting system that can operate without any power input to meet the flight requirements under extreme weather conditions and high latitude.
Since most of the helicopters at the airport are heavy, they generate extremely strong downwash airflow during takeoff and landing, making conventional equipment installation methods difficult to withstand.The picture below shows a specially treated solar sign that can fully withstand the downwash of the Mi-26.
Solution
DOUBLEWISE delivered, installed and commissioned an off-grid, solar powered airfield lighting , solar guidance signs and solar heliport TLOF lighting for its 800m Runway & Heliports.
The solar airfield lighting system consists of Wireless remote control terminal, Solar low intensity runway edge lights, Runway threshold/end lights, Tee lights, Guidance signs, Airport beacon and solar Heliport Lighting composed of Wireless remote controller, Solar TLOF lights, Solar Flood lights, Solar Guide runway light,Taxiway lights,and Solar Windsock etc..
These solar lights can be remotely controlled to achieve three levels of dimming: Low intensity, Medium intensity, and High intensity via a Wireless Mesh Network. The wireless control terminal can be placed on the Control Tower with an effective control distance of 3000 meters and the Handheld remote controller RC-2 can be used inside the area of the airport runway and heliports.
Application:
- A Runway 800m
- A Taxiway 82m
- 30m*30m Heliport *3
- 40m*40m Helipad *1
- 40m*120m Apron
Products:
- DWSAN605 Low intensity solar runway lights
- DWSAN301B Solar taxiway light
- DWSAN301G Solar heliport perimeter light
- DWS-Sign Solar guidance signs
- DWS801AF Solar heliport floodlight