If you fly 150 hours a year and use your landing light for a third of those hours, you spend maybe $50 a year for new lamps. Big deal. But that’s not the problem. The problem is that the bulb will fizzle just when you need it most and invariably when you’re in too big of a hurry to change it.

4509 bulbs are made by several manufacturers. Galaxy from Aircraft Spruce performed best. Quartz bulbs are also winners.

Any fool can land an airplane on a darkened runway without much risk. The sweaty palm part is finding the faded yellow taxi line and getting to the ramp without an excursion through the tulies, risking a $10,000 prop strike for the sake of $10 bulb. …