Almost all aircraft are equipped with exterior light units. In particular, large passenger air planes are provided with a wide variety of exterior light units. The light units are provided for a wide variety of different purposes, such as for allowing the passengers and/or air crew to view the outside, for passive visibility, for signalling purposes, etc. Examples of such exterior light units are navigation or position lights, beacon lights, anti-collision lights or strobe lights, wing scan lights, landing lights, taxi lights, runway turn-off lights, etc. For some exterior lights, it is desired and/or required by regulations to have high emission intensities in particular output regions or directions, such as particular output planes. In previous approaches, achieving said high emission intensities in particular output directions has resulted in large optical structures and light units. This is very cumbersome in the aircraft field, because some exterior aircraft light units must be in locations where they can be seen from many angles, resulting in disadvantageous light positions in terms of the aerodynamics and other design goals of the aircraft. In the particular case of beacon lights that are mounted to the top or the bottom of the aircraft fuselage, their large size adds substantial drag to the aircraft, thus being detrimental to the operating efficiency of the aircraft.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to provide an exterior aircraft light unit that is capable of providing a high light intensity output at a compact size. Further, it would be beneficial to provide an aircraft with such exterior lighting.