A320 navigation lights, how do you use them, do you alternate between sys 1 and sys 2

[a320carlos]

Some people use sys 1 for odds days and sys 2 for pairs.
Others depending on the flight number.
What's your company policy?
How do you save the "bulbs life"? If any....

[Metro man]

#1 if the Captain is flying, #2 if the F/O is flying. Goes nicely with transponder selection.

[Dupre]

We also use #1 for capt PF, #2 for f/o PF

[TurningFinalRWY36]

great to see others get to grips with the non-essentials

[akindofmagic]

Give me strength. Is this genuinely written down in some airlines? I thought we had prescriptivie SOPs but bloody hell...

[Capt Fathom]

I only crash on Wednesdays!

But only if Nav Lights are #2....

[TURIN]

On a Daily check we switch them anyway.

[Skornogr4phy]

Nav Lights on 1. If any seem to be INOP, switch to 2.

[PENKO]

Only 1, with 2 as back up.
Related question:

Do you use your NAV lights during the day?
We do in my company although our manual doesn't tell us to ('as required').

[CaptainMongo]

SOP at our company is NAV lights left on all the time 7-24, 365.

Airbus NAV lights stay in position two, position one if position two inoperative.

[Check Airman]

Give me strength. Is this genuinely written down in some airlines? I thought we had prescriptivie SOPs but bloody hell...

It does get ridiculous at some point, doesn't it? My last airline's SOP said something like "when 2 systems are available, use 1/2 if the CA/FO is flying".

It made sense for the AP and transponder. Most people would just leave the nav light in whatever position it was in when we walked into the cockpit.

[Deejaypee]

Nav Lights are ancient technology invented for use on boats. They found their way into aviation when the fasted thing in the sky maybe did 200kts.
They are really a redundant piece of equipment on modern aircraft!

[noflynomore]

DJP, with all the fools who stooge around the London TMA at night without landing lights I'd say nav lights are still very useful indeed.
They also highlight where wingtips are at night and in low vis. I don't think they're redundant at all.

[PENKO]

Don't forget taxying around a dark (or foggy) airport, NAV lights are sometimes all you see!
So not outdated at all. Some operators even switch on the wing scan light just to be more conspicuous.

[orion1210]

Using one system all of the time and the other for back up is one way of helping to ensure at least one system is hopefully always fully serviceable. The same logic can be applied to other redundant systems where only one is in 'use' at any one time.

If both systems are used equally, on alternate days for instance, you are more likely to have failures around the same time as the associated components have had the same amount of use. Obviously, it is still rare to have dual failures and there are other factors involved other than hours of use but it made sense to me when a colleague explained it to me! That said as an aircraft accumulates time, more and more high failure rate items are being replaced introducing splits in individual operation times regardless... ah... do whatever the SOP says :}

[Escape Path]

What's the point? Use the one that isn't inop. MEL'd logo lights will help you decide which one to use

[Denti]

Switch it to one, i'm too lazy to switch it to two, except if one is inop. Apparently preety much all of our pilots domit that way, but there is no SOP for that.

[FlightDetent]

And why is it that people flick the switch when reading the EXT LT from the Parking C/L?

:)

[noflynomore]

Multi-fingered switch flickers are among the scariest people in aviation imo.

Baad habit, baad CRM - flicking switches. Switches should be positively moved - just gives the brain as well as the other pilot a chance to verify that what you are switching is what you (both) intended to switch.
It's not like a piano where a bum note just isn't important...

[Checkboard]

with all the fools who stooge around the London TMA at night without landing lights
The airbus only has extendible landing lights, with the attendant vibration and fuel penalties - unlike the Boeing with it's set of lights in the wing root fairing. ... So they are only fools for flying an airbus, instead of a Boeing. ;)

[Check Airman]

I'll give you a slight vibration if you're flying fast enough, but a fuel penalty while being vectored? Surely your fuel margins aren't that thin

[Mungo Man]

MEL says 1% per fuel penalty per landing light extended... indeed fuel would have to be super tight!

[Escape Path]

Well, in our company we turn them off when retracting flaps and turn them back on when we lower the landing gear.

So we fly most of our approach without lights (and yes it is because of fuel)

[CallmeJB]

That gas saved will all be wasted when you nail a light aircraft or a glider out there.

Lights are installed for more than one reason... not just to see the runway.

[Check Airman]

Well, in our company we turn them off when retracting flaps and turn them back on when we lower the landing gear.

So we fly most of our approach without lights (and yes it is because of fuel)
Talk about measuring with a micrometer! Landing lights are to see and be seen. It certainly sems like an unusual measure.

[Check Airman]

That gas saved will all be wasted when you nail a light aircraft or a glider out there.

Lights are installed for more than one reason... not just to see the runway.

Agreed. In fairness though, it depends on where you're flying. At some sleepy airport in the middle of nowhere, fine. Here in the US, traffic levels are much higher, and lighting is more important.

[noflynomore]

Talk about measuring with a micrometer! Landing lights are to see and be seen. It certainly sems like an unusual measure.

Of course it depend on the airspace. Rural French airports may well not require lights to Fl100, some others most certainly do.

The obsession with fuel saving has become so extreme in some pilots' heads that advice in the Ops manual regarding that mythical 1% and considering early retraction has morphed into it being regarded as mandatory. Sadly it only takes a few really anal Captains to insist on switching them off with flap retraction that those FOs who haven't already been brainwashed get "corrected" for not doing so and thus adopt the habit to avoid feeling "criticised" in future - this is how desperately sensitive many are. They soon become Captains and the habit is ingrained in all but a few diehards who remember - and I'm about to swear now - that unmentionable word A*******ip, so you end up with a whole company that habitually flies around in one of the the busiest TMAs in the world in complete darkness.

This thread is itself a worrying product of blind reliance on over rigid SOPs overruling common sense or "that word again" - we really have a problem when people need to ask how to use nav lights because SOP doesn't tell them in infinite detail. And we certainly don't need to be adding unoffical and self-invented "SOPs " to become rigidly and unquestioningly ingrained just because everyone else does it. I found some FOs got most uncomfortable when I left those lights on after flap retraction - hand hovering to and from the switch as though the stupid old fart had forgotten to call for the wheels up! Their pavlovian 1% objections were even more worrrying - some had never even considerd the idea of visibility and dismissed it out of hand as we were IFR and "ATC looks after that". Saving five litres of gas was far more important than being seen, apparently, not that many had even considered there to be an option.

In a world where every single action is an SOP they tend to merge and each become identically important and imperative as the next one so we end up with a whole (very large) company appearing to treat the cycling of Nav lights with equal importance and urgency as observing flap retraction speeds, readbacks or decision heights - and switching landng lights off at 1000ft has (unoficially) become the same too!

It worries the hell out of me, a company where the "A" word has been totally eliminated (I never heard it uttered in over 10 years - truly) in favour of fly-by-numbers.

[Escape Path]

Talk about measuring with a micrometer! Landing lights are to see and be seen. It certainly sems like an unusual measure.
I agree. Seems a bit odd and we've even got a few comments from other pilots over the radio (because they meddle like that) but it's even in our SOPs, it's not an unofficial procedure.

I'd leave them on as we always did, but hey...

[PENKO]

Rural French airports are just the kind of place where I would keep the lights on. However flying into a heavily controlled London TMA, with TCAS huffing and puffing away, most times in IMC anyway...I am not too concerned.

[Uplinker]

@noflynomore:

Yeah, I know where you're coming from, but dare I hazard that you are of a previous flying generation?, (your forum name would suggest so).

If I am right, you have my total respecr, (and jealousy !); You were one of the lucky ones who flew in the golden years of aviation, but also an era in which the pilots themselves decided how to fly and what to do to remain safe. i.e., before the days of prescriptive SOPs.

Nowadays, we get cadets who flew a Diamond DA62, and then come straight onto an Airbus/Boeing, instead of flying several ancient turboprops on the night mail run for a couple of years, followed by a basic jet before getting onto the big shiny aluminium.

(A wonderful old-school Captain, (Hi Neil), once told me that you knew when you had made it in aviation when your aircraft had the following features:
The nosewheel is behind the cockpit,
There are more toilets than engines,
You don't have to bend down to walk under the fuselage)
.......but I digress.

Anyway, today's aviation has a minimum of training time, and so SOPs have become an important way of bolstering up that lack of journeyman experience. There simply isn't the time available for cadets to learn through long years of observation, so SOPs have become the way to pass on the collected wisdom?

I don't say this is right or wrong, but simply offer it as a thought.

[Bealzebub]

The "golden years of aviation" There wasn't much "Golden" when you compare the accident rates over the preceding decades. Obviously technical advances have played a significant part in that improvement, but without doubt the greatest improvement has come about in our understanding and application of human factors.

Too many serviceable aircraft driven into the ground and sea by "ego" and "attitude" that went unchecked for far too long. "Prescriptive SOPs" and "Relevant training" and understand the limitations and application of those factors (which many don't) have been important and hugely successful drivers in improving those safety statistics.

Speaking as one who also grew up in some of those so called "golden years" one ingredient played a far more significant part than it ever really should have. That ingredient was "Luck!" Sadly, it had a tendency to run out rather too frequently.

The last 114 years have been a steep learning curve, and we certainly still have some way to go, but whatever the misty eyed "golden years" were famous for, safety wasn't one of them.

[fantom]

The very best in practical technical discussion on the web.

Good grief.

[noflynomore]

Golden years? Previous generation? Strewth! Mid '90s onwards in airlines...hardly ancient yet. Just a time when you developed as a practical pilot rather than a single type-specific specialist automation operator.
My first proper airline (I use the term loosely) came up with an idea called Essopees and we all looked at each other in amazement and asked what the #### are they, and later what we wanted them for as we knew how to operate the aircraft. We thought it would be a few pages and roared with disbelieving laughter whrn it was published at 70 or so, although that had a lot to do with who had written it and some of the daft things included in it. (Like what to do with your hat in an evacuation - I kid you not).
The sort of all-encompassing SOPs we are tslking about are a phenomenon of only the last fifteen years at most.

[Goldenrivett]

(Like what to do with your hat in an evacuation - I kid you not).
That was probably so you would be noticed as you "directed passengers away from danger". Most uniformed officers wear hats to make them conspicuous in the crowd. (e.g. police)

The sort of all-encompassing SOPs we are talking about are a phenomenon of only the last fifteen years at most.
Crikey! Where were you hiding?

We had adopted NASA CRM training by the mid 80s.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19800013796.pdf

[a330pilotcanada]

Good Evening All:

Getting back to the original question it was simple for our operation System 1 was selected for odd numbered flights System 2 for even numbered flights that way bulbs got even use.

Now to the question of extending landing lights again very simple other then the USA (below 18,000 for high performance VFR) lights were out at 10,000. With regards to vibration very little and it sounds like a mountain out of a mole hill as it pays to be visible.....

[EcamSurprise]

Baad habit, baad CRM - flicking switches.

Amen. Nothing worse than sitting there and trying to work out what your colleague just did at some crazy switch flicking speed.

[a320carlos]

NAVIGATION LIGHTS AS I ORIGINALLY POSTED
I personally agree with Metro man…. And that’s right, it goes nicely with the transponder selection.
The initial question that I posted was not to discuss the SOPs, they are there for a reason, just to know about how do you or your company are using the NAVIGATION LIGHTS, their use, is not described in the Standard Operation Procedures, and we have to use them every day.
The use of the navigation lights, without control or procedure, does not help us or the maintenance department to prevent future bulbs/Leds failures, or if the use of those navigation lights, always in the same fixed position will end, until we found a “dead bulb” and we are forced to switch it to the other system, so we [maintenance and the crew] are complete sure that we drained up to the last drop of light, on that component.
By the other hand, let me post a comment about the use of TAKE OFF LIGHTS [as posted by the some participants] I know that fuel it’s important and we have to save the natural resources, but above everything, SAFE IT’S THE MAIN REASON why all of us are still here. SEE AND BE SEEN it’s [and should be] the most important issue, and it do not depends on the airport traffic nor the personal idea.
Each airplane model has its “pros and contras” and they surely have been taking into account when the cost index has been analyzed by the Company. It´s their concern, mine it´s safety.

[lahoanghai]

#1 if the Captain is flying, #2 if the F/O is flying. Goes nicely with transponder selection.

:ok:]#1 if the Captain is flying, #2 if the F/O is flying

[mcdude]

Not according to FCOM, now says #2 is only used when #1 fails - glad they cleared that up!

[FlightDetent]

Would be good. What's your FCOM date / issue? Here's ours, recently updated.

PRO-NOR-SOP-06-A-00011160.0001001 / 05 JAN 15
EXTERIOR LIGHTS
STROBE sw..................................................AUTO
BEACON sw..................................................OFF
REMAINING EXTERIOR LIGHTS.......................AS RQRD

[Chris Martyr]

Thanks for that one FlightDetent..:ok: As a Grd. Eng. it's a bit of a nuisance for us having Nav Lts "As Req'd" , because that means that some flight deck crews switch them off and some guys leave 'em on . Neither of which is wrong according to the C/L.
But as an earlier contributor remarked , they're best left on all the time except for during prolonged maint. periods.
Having the F/D crews switch them off and then switched on again is the best way to pop a filament and they will be switched on again anyway by Engineers as it's part of the Daily Check.
As far as I'm concerned , leaving nav. lights on the same system continuously is best by far. Then if one is spotted as inop at a base-stn , it can be re-lamped , or if down route , it can be MEL'd .


I don't wish to delve too far into SOP's or their politics , although one does sometimes wonder if they're the product of knowledge and experience , or concocted by self-important little career monkeys.

[FlightDetent]

Chris, could you confirm what are the prescribed checks/task for DY and WY with regards to NAV lt?

Similar to many times before, the information a qualified engineer could provide would settle a circular argument. :). Thanks.

[A and C]

It so reassuring that there are people with such a vice like grip on the truly trivial.

[galaxy flyer]

Why isn’t it swapped automatically?

[Citation2]

Just one small point .The golden days of aviation did not have the golden and super hi tech aircrafts that we have nowadays requiring no skills. Therefore comparing accidents rates with a new generation super advanced aicraft to an old piece of metal is lying.

The only skill required to get to the right hand seat of an airliner is a finger . Why a finger ?
1) count the money to pay the airline that gives you the privilege to pseudo fly
2) Most importantly engage the autopilot

Therefore Accident rates reduction cannot be put on the back of SOPs.

For example GPWS has greatly reduced CFIT and this is recognized by all aviation institution IATA etc..

So we are talking about technology.

What amazes me is in case of LVP and Autoland , Captain still believes he was pilot flying.

I suggest to remove as required from SOPs and give details when required as NG pilots are unable to determine when required.

[Meikleour]

galaxy flyer: Steady on old boy! Don't give Airbus any more ideas on how to complicate an aircraft. You will end up with a NavLt Computer sychronised to the earth's day/night cycle via the GPS clock but also untimately fitted with a Manual Override Swich marked ON/OFF!

[Check Airman]

Do you mean ON-AUTO-OFF like the strobe light switch?

[vilas]

Why isn’t it swapped automatically?
If igniters, CPC, LGCIU can be swapped automatically this one is no big deal. But it's minor item may not be worth the effort.

[oceancrosser]

Why fit a dual NAV LT system at all? Adds complexity and (minor) weight. For redundancy of a low-tech system. I don't recall ever having had MEL issues due to NAV LTs.

[EGPFlyer]

In our MEL (I’m presuming it’s due to EASA legislation) we need at least one working set of nav lights to fly at night.. if we only had one system then a busted bulb and no spare would mean being grounded until the sun came up.

[EGPFlyer]

Chris Martyr

I think it’s ‘as required’ because you don’t need landing lights or nav lights during daylight. You could have a situation where you are flying with them inop in accordance with the MEL and you would have them off.

[Airbus_a321]

@ Chris Martyr
...or concocted by self-important little career monkeys.... EXCELLENT

[FlyingStone]

if we only had one system then a busted bulb and no spare would mean being grounded until the sun came up.

You could have one system with two bulbs at each position that operate in parallel at all times.

[EGPFlyer]

Indeed, but then you’ve 6 bulbs operating all the time instead of 3 so you’ll need to replace them more often.

[Vessbot]

At a probably trivial cost. The advantage is that when a bulb fails, there's already a bulb lit at the corresponding position/color instead of running dark until the next walkaround catches it.

[galaxy flyer]

I think the Global has a auto system changing the two LEDs at each position. For sure, no control switch and two bulbs.