Hover Lights

Hover Lights

Labradors as stated earlier use their, nose mounted, fully articulating landing lights in a variety situations from landing, to search or when in the hover because they can.  To enhance its’ single articulating light, the Voyageur was fitted with a hover light just aft of the center hatch and slightly to the left of midline.  This light, as the name implies, was used for those situations were the Voyageur was required to hover at night.  My presumption is that the light was likely located here to give the Flight Engineer a better look at the ground or objects below during SAR or slinging procedures. As Voyageurs were mobilized for SAR duties, the center hatch was used more often to facilitate SAR procedures and was the position from where Flight Engineers coordinated hoist and sling operations. Slinging at night would be but one example of where the hover light would be of use.

Labradors were not purchased with hover lights and as late as the “Speedline” series of modifications it seems they were still not fitted with them.  As near as I can confirm through photos, hover lights were installed on Labradors as part of “SARCUP”.!

Labrador 302, after SARCUP modifications has the landing light.