pilots stealing to survive?

[tocamak]

Not a bad idea if you ask me

I agree. By day when was there ever an occasion that observing the nav lights on an approaching aircraft was the first time you saw it coming ? Even by night the usual practice of having landing lights blazing away below Fl100 means the true purpose of the nav lights is obscured i.e. to be able to judge the relative orientation of the other aircraft. Turn them off and save the planet!

[fade to grey]

Yeah quite right,nav lights are waste of time during the day unless you grubbing around in a cessna under the overcast.

My only fear is forgetting to turn em on when it gets dark

[dnk]

We fly exclusively day VFR in a caravan, yet our SOPs call for Nav lights to be ON as part of the Taxi checks

I reallly couldnt tell you why...

[captplaystation]

Phew, fair bit of thread drift ere, which I will continue by adding . . .the first company I remember introducing this justified it in the name of supposedly enhancing the awareness of catering truck drivers, and the likes, of the extremity of that big aluminium plank stuck on each side.
I could always see the point at night, but during the day ? If they couldn't see 50ft of wing, what chance a little "fairy light" in bright sunlight

In the meantime it seems to have been pretty widely adopted as a kind of "aircraft (& occupants ) alive" signal, in the same way as an anti-coll means engines running, or will be soon.

I wouldn't be surprised if a large part of it is merely that they don't trust us to remember to put them on when it gets dark though.