The slightly worn helicopter searchlight at the Vectorbeam Technologies booth (No. 4101) illustrates not wear and tear from normal operations but the punishment that the unit went through during RTCA DO-160E testing, including lightning tests.
Vectorbeam’s Trakka searchlight, introduced at Heli-Expo’06, has completed the stringent DO-160E testing and achieved its first installation, on two Bell 407s operated by the Fairfax County Police Aviation Division in Virginia–one of which is on display at L-3 Communications’ booth (No. 2847).

The 800-watt Trakka A800 searchlight uses optics to push light from a xenon short-arc lamp to the edge of the beam to deliver an even profile of light instead of the widely dispersed light surrounding a central hotspot typical of ordinary searchlights, said Shawn Mitschelen, Vectorbeam vice president of sales and marketing.

The Trakka A800 weighs 30 pounds and costs about $25,000, plus installation. Vectorbeam is working to amend existing supplemental type certificates for the mount to which the Trakka attaches to include the searchlight installation.

Control of the light is from switches on the cyclic, collective and a separate hand control.