Adding lights to home airstrip?

I own and live on a private turf airstrip, 7MN3, in SE Minnesota. The runway is about 2700X80 and nicely maintained. Until this year we've never had edge markers, since it's pretty easy to spot and obvious when you're familiar with it. This year the MN DOT told us that edge markers would be required to register it with the state as a landing strip (we would like it registered and charted, for various reasons). So, made some markers out of PVC pipe on top of disk blades, no problem, they are visible from pattern altitude as required.

Now that I've got them, I'd like to add lights to extend the usefulness of the strip. I first tried just putting a stripe of the 3M high reflective tape on the top of the markers, which kind of worked, but was only showing up in the landing lights on fairly short final (1/2-1/4 mile or so). I've got pretty good LED landing lights, so that's probably as good as it's going to get with the passive approach. Has anyone tried something like this:

https://www.trans-supply.com/gp-332-...screwbase.aspx

for runway lights. It's listed for airport use, but is intended for barricades, etc. not necessarily edge lighting. There are also lots of solar dock lights and similar products that may work, for similar costs, like these:

https://www.lakelite.com/products/2p...-lights-round/

I will probably just order a couple and see how far out I can see them, but wondered if anyone had any insights or suggestions to try. Ideally I'd like something that I can pick up from at least a couple of miles out, given clear conditions. I've got feelers out for some quotes on more industrial type lighting, but not responses yet, and the 'official' solar MIRL that is available is around $2000 per light.

I'll probably also add a flashing beacon to the top of the 90' grain leg that is on the property, both for collision avoidance and to allow spotting the airport from farther out than just when on final.

Patrick

At my home field the runway lights are ordinary light bulbs inside white traffic cones.

Federal charting is not dependent on lighting or markings. All you do is tick that box on your airport master record. Not sure what "state registration" buys you.

Some of my neighbors have put these sort of things on. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Costway-8...&wl13=&veh=sem

psween, You stated, "

So, made some markers out of PVC pipe on top of disk blades, no problem, they are visible from pattern altitude as required. " I don't really have need of runway lighting at this time, but I'm curious about how you made them out of pvc. Do you have any pictures ?
Bob

One airpark I flew at used inverted mayonnaise, peanut butter, or pickle jars with lids soldered to the electrical conduit and 40w refrigerator light bulbs. They take the temperature changes better than regular bulbs. That was before LED light bulbs. We just laid the outdoor rated "romex" cable in a shallow trench. Worked for years. There are airport-specific reflectors that work better than tape around the posts. Maybe the rules are different out west?

http://www.swaviator.com/html/issueA...htingAM00.html

http://www.aztecnm.gov/airport/index.html

Those cheap temporary reflectors they stick on fresh asphalt might work better. Angle up at 5° or something for direct retro-reflection.

I'll snap a picture of the markers next time I'm out. As for state registration, it doesn't really gain us much, as we're already listed and charted on the sectional. We do operate a vacation rental on the strip and want to be as accessible as possible, so being registered with the state might be useful. As for regular bulbs, we really don't want the expense or labor of running over a mile of wire, so any lights should be self contained. I've looked at those flat driveway type lights and my concern is visibility from the side. They look bright enough to see from quite a distance when lined up, hard to see from any off angle. Thanks, getting some good thoughts going.

I have been seeing a growing use of solar walkway lights set in the tops of the runway markers. These are just the inexpensive Walmart / Ebay sourced lights. They can be had for a few dollars each. They will not last forever but the replacements do not hurt the wallet.

We did something similar in SE Michigan. We buried romex and used low wattage lamps set in jars with screw lids mounted to runway marker cones. I don't remember where we got the cones, but I think Michigan aeronautics got them for us. One of the guys is a ham radio operator, so he built a runway light controller. It was a pretty simple device that counted pulses and sequences between pulses, and if the combination of key-down/key-up (4 clicks/ some short time between key up) it switched a relay that turned on the RW lights for about 4 minutes. We did this because the field was short, and we wanted to make sure whoever was coming in was based there or very familiar with the field for night arrivals. We set it up on the CTAF freq.

Ours is published in the AFD as having "Non-standard LIRL"

You can buy a similar controller for around $375 or so from hamtronics R123. Or you can build one from scratch. The one built from scratch was similar to the R123. If you wanted to try this, you could look for a local ham and ask them for ideas to roll you own. The cost of parts is probably around $50 or so, and it might be fun. They guy who built ours also built an RV.

Drop a note to Mike Reddick, over at Hicks Field in Fort Worth (T67). He has a source for solar led lights that they are using for taxiway markings. From what I remember, they were pretty inexpensive and work well. I think he said that they were under 10 bucks each when they bought a decent quantity of them.

A follow up, I bought a couple of the flat path markers off amazon, they're definitely bright enough to see from over a mile, closer to 2 if I know where to look. They were only $10 each and I think I'll go with them for now. Still might put a brighter flashing unit on the grain leg so I can see the field location from farther out and off axis, but the runway itself is pretty easy to line up on now from either end. Thanks for the tips.

Patrick