Helicopter operating company, Bristow, can now land its pilots safely at any time of the day or night without affecting the adjacent Norwich Airport runway, thanks to the installation of precision floodlighting technology from Abacus Lighting.
Abacus was commissioned by Bristow, the largest helicopter operating company in the world, when a major redevelopment of the facility meant an upgrade in the lighting system was required.
The facility, which is located at Norwich Airport, comprises 12 helipads from which helicopters fly hundreds of passengers annually to the North Sea oil rigs.
The challenge was to provide a lighting solution that would combine excellent performance with minimal glare – a major consideration when pilots are taking off or landing at night. The floodlighting masts also had to be installed around the perimeter of the site without lighting spill encroaching onto the main airport runway or controlled airspace.
In response to this challenge, Abacus developed and installed a combination of eleven 25m and 35m based hinged masts. These unique, patented masts raise and lower from ground level by a safe and simple operating system, comprising gravity locks operated by a hydraulic cylinder counterbalance unit. This means improved health and safety during installation and maintenance as no working at height is involved.
The masts carry Abacus’ Rhea 1kW floodlights which have been specially designed to incorporate an integral baffle to ensure excellent glare limitation.
Tim Lachojski, Abacus’ Project Co-ordinator for the scheme, said: “The lighting at Bristow has been designed to direct a pool of light onto the circular apron which ensures that pilots can see ground staff clearly when taxiing. This enables ground staff to carry out their tasks such as cleaning, refueling, off-loading passengers and freight etc in complete safety.”
The Challenger 1 LED range represents the cutting edge of LED floodlighting. With unrivalled performance and the most low profile design on the market, the Challenger 1 LED is perfect for a large number of applications across many industries.
The range of lowering headframe masts from Abacus deliver precision engineering solutions for a great variety of different projects – from major container port terminals to international airports