Jeff,

You are opening up a can of worms here. This has been hashed and rehashed on many forums. The answer is - it depends. On: what slope do you normally fly in at? power on or off? What do you want to see - the numbers? the landing spot? What do you want to see at flare? On and on.

So my primary thoughts are - I would use a separate light and angle for each taxi and landing (both fixed, but adjustable like auto headlights) - the last thing you need at night is fiddling with a cable to adjust the angle so you can see where your going, when you are supposed to be flying/landing the airplane. No need to add on more workload especially at night. What would you do if the cable or attach point fails or jams with a bird in there or who knows what else - you won't be able to change configurations, then what?

The other advantage of separate lights is, you could have them both on if approach is not optimal, covering a much wider and longer area.

The only way your really going to know is to do it and test them and adjust from there. As a basis, you are probably going to want to see further than 30 feet at taxi and your landing light will likely end up at a much different angle (down) than you initially think.

I don't know what engine you have in your 7, but I would be very hesitant to reduce the cowl intake at all if it serves any airflow/cooling purpose in your configuration.

Everyone will have a different answer though.

Greg