Aircraft Maintenance Lighting

By necessity, aircraft maintenance facilities have high ceilings and expansive footprints. Overhead lighting must be capable of efficiently projecting light downward through the space to provide relatively high levels of illumination for the performance of life-critical visual tasks below. This necessitates relatively high-output lighting equipment exhibiting sufficient optical control to produce a narrow beam pattern.

Both the quantity and quality of light are critical visibility factors given the obvious safety implications of the work being performed. The Illuminating Engineering Society of North America provides light level recommendations along with standardized methods to account for various known light-loss mechanisms over the life of the system. Lighting quality concerns factors such as color rendering for accurate identification of color-coded parts (electrical wiring, etc...), three-dimensional modeling for easy discernment of small parts, complex mechanisms and assemblies, and other geometric details including defects.

Auxiliary task lighting may be required to provide portable and temporary supplemental illumination for visual tasks that are naturally in the shadows of the overhead lighting system (e.g. underside of wing or aircraft body). However, the use of highly reflective floor treatments can substantially mediate these needs. A versatile general lighting system can be designed to augment and potentially even reduce the need for auxiliary task lighting by concentrating light on areas of the floor space specifically designated for maintenance and repair work.