Landing Lights in cloud - good or poor airmanship?
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: In a far better place
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Well... I suppose the basic simulator pilot keep the landing lights on, even whilst flying in the clouds, so the water droplets can avoid the jet. Can't speak for the others guys who fly airplanes
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We takeoff and land from lit runways so "night vision" wouldn't be of much use.
Don't tell that to the flight attendants. After all, that is the rationale for dimming the cabin lights for take off and landing so that in event of a passenger evacuation, the evacuees (men, women and children while the captain is supposed to go down with his ship) will have their eyes accustomed the dark as they go down the slides.
It might be better to have the cabins excruciatingly brightly lit (sunglasses required), so that in the event of a nighttime evacuation, the passengers couldn't see to pick up their duty-free and luggage and didn't pause at the top of the slide because they didn't like the view...
Nightvision for passengers?? That must be something Australian 
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Do you also tell the punters to stop reading the paper and switch off that 100-watt-high-intensity-night-vision-killer-of-a-reading-light before takeoff?
On topic and as others have said, I have never found landing lights in clouds to be an issue, other than during night approaches with a low cloud deck. The strobe can be irritating sometimes, but I'd rather be seen... And as for the passengers, if they don't like the strobes they can use their window blinds.
Sometimes night vision has it's merrits in modern airline operations, such as night visual approaches. But then again, I'd rather sacrifice my nightvision than having such a dark cockpit that I can't properly read my approach chart...
.Do you also tell the punters to stop reading the paper and switch off that 100-watt-high-intensity-night-vision-killer-of-a-reading-light before takeoff?
On topic and as others have said, I have never found landing lights in clouds to be an issue, other than during night approaches with a low cloud deck. The strobe can be irritating sometimes, but I'd rather be seen... And as for the passengers, if they don't like the strobes they can use their window blinds.
Sometimes night vision has it's merrits in modern airline operations, such as night visual approaches. But then again, I'd rather sacrifice my nightvision than having such a dark cockpit that I can't properly read my approach chart...
Join Date: Jun 2000
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...or newspaper.
"SOP" these days amongst Joe Avg's seems to be to turn every possible light on max brightness, day and night. And who needs night vision when you don't look out the window anyway?
Even with wx at mins this is done. Try dropping a hint about possibly being able to see the approach lights a tad earlier if the landing, taxi and wing, as well as the floods on the inside are killed, and get rewarded with a quizzical stare in return.
If we didn't have the extremely detailed sop's that we do, most guys wouldn't know what to do anymore. That goes for lights, too.
"SOP" these days amongst Joe Avg's seems to be to turn every possible light on max brightness, day and night. And who needs night vision when you don't look out the window anyway?
Even with wx at mins this is done. Try dropping a hint about possibly being able to see the approach lights a tad earlier if the landing, taxi and wing, as well as the floods on the inside are killed, and get rewarded with a quizzical stare in return.
If we didn't have the extremely detailed sop's that we do, most guys wouldn't know what to do anymore. That goes for lights, too.
