Curtis, a student pilot in Arizona, writes: On a training flight yesterday I saw an airplane coming in to land that had landing lights on the wings that were alternately flashing off and on. My CFI said that it was a “wig-wag” system. Such a funny name. I’m wondering where it came from.
I love wig-wags! There’s something about dancing lights that really catches the eye.
As to the name, unlike so many aviation terms that come from the sea, this time we have trains and automobiles to thank. Well, the fact that trains and automobiles were tending to bump into each other in the late 1800s and early 1900s, that is, with cars smacking into trains and trains smacking into cars. The trains were there first, but clearly everyone needed to adapt, as cars weren’t going away.
In those days, labor was cheap and tech was low, so many busy railroad crossings were manned by a watchman who, at the approach of a train, would stand out in the road and swing a red lantern side-to-side in an arc as a signal for cars to stop.
Then, in 1909, an electrical engineer named Albert Hunt developed a mechanical version of the watchman that could be deployed at less-busy intersections on rail routes. It featured a large pole-mounted pendulum with a red light that automatically swung back and forth on the approach of a train, mimicking the watchman’s signal. You only see them in railway museums nowadays, but at one time, they were as common as railroad crossing gates are today.
As the automated swinging lights, officially called Magnetic Flagman, became more common, they picked up the colloquial nickname of “wig-wag lights,” apparently describing their motion, which resembled a dog wagging its tail.
This nickname became codified in the 1930s when the Studebaker Company used it as the label for an emergency flasher option in its cars, which, you guessed it, was a system to make the headlights and tail lights alternately flash, just like the landing airplane you witnessed.
As a side note, many cop cars and ambulances still have the alternating headlights to this day, and these systems are still called “wig-wags” in the public safety community. When they were introduced to aircraft, we just took the name with us.
I have a wig-wag system on my Ercoupe that allows me to flash my taxi and landing lights, which are mounted outboard in the wings on opposite sides of each other — one in the left wing and the other in the right. I can choose between no flashing (for twilight/night operations), alternate wigging, or synchronized wagging. I can also choose between several speeds.
Why did I get one? I fly an airplane the color of sky and clouds and I fly in busy airspace. I want to do everything humanly possible to increase my visibility — so I don’t get hit by a train!
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