Originally Posted by
HissingSyd
This is something that has bugged me from the very beginning and rather pushes the question of NVG to one side.
They were flying straight towards a lighthouse flashing every 12 sec - an intense source - which they neither saw nor caught the loom of.
To me this implies that the visibility at that position and height was far worse that the reports and may have been only a few metres. The lamp was only 82 feet above them.
Both as a pilot who once spent a fair amount of time flying around at 200 feet over the sea in some appalling weather, and as a ship's navigating officer, I am mightily puzzled.
It bothered me too, however read Appendix W in the technical appendices document (page 103) and it goes into why this would be so in some detail (pencil beam, optimised for shipping). Also, but not in the report to my knowledge, the moon (above clouds, so no idea how visible it was) was on the direct reciprocal of their final track, i.e. behind the lighthouse.