Runway lights

[Rolds]

Just had another landing, nellis at 19:00 in sim time, 1/6/2018. Very dark, almost impossible to see the runway, but the runway lights were not on. I did contact the tower on 327.00 and was cleared to land but they never turned them on.

 

 

This is very irritating. A simple method to ask ATC to turn the lights on would be appreciated! That would fix another problem, where during daytime under low visibility conditions like sandstorm and fog the runway lights are not illuminated.

[Rolds]

In fact as the mission proceeded further, the runway lights were never switched on even after it was fully dark, I thought they were at least time based? Think this is a bug, track is too big to include I'm afraid.

[Emmy]

Odd. After this latest update (Open Beta) I could actually see the race track, both runways and the strip at night from beyond Apex inbound to Nellis.

[Rolds]

When the runway lights are on they are easily visible. The problem appears to be that (in open beta right now) whether they are on or off is tied to the mission start time. If I start at night, the lights are on, and stay on. Start in daylight and they are off, and stay off.

 

 

 

Another example, I was just on the Burning Skies server, which starts at 10/8/1943 at 0700. The runway lights are on at Anapa, which is appropriate as it is still very dark out. At 0830 the lights are still on even though the sun is high in the sky and it is bright out.

 

 

 

I don't think it used to work like this, I think it used to change based on time of day. What I would really like would be ability to control lights on/off based on visibility, such as fog and sand, in the ME (or automatically based on ME settings). Having the ability to ask the tower to turn them on would be great, and not unrealistic as this sometimes happens in real aviation.

[SonofEil]

What I would really like would be ability to control lights on/off based on visibility, such as fog and sand, in the ME (or automatically based on ME settings). Having the ability to ask the tower to turn them on would be great, and not unrealistic as this sometimes happens in real aviation.

 

This is brought up and requested pretty frequently and for good reason. It wouldn't be hard to implement either since runway lights (at least in the USA and Europe) are governed by strict numbers. If it's daytime and any of the ME weather parameters (specifically ceiling and visibility) fall within MVFR or less, then runway lights should be on. They're required to be on in reality at controlled airports.

 

Another problem with DCS though is that it's not rendering an overcast day correctly (among many other lighting deficiencies). In sim a high overcast of ~10,000 ft. and 20 miles vis at midday often causes a hug loss of ground detail, to the point that runway lights are necessary even on short final. Real world runway lights would remain off at 10k/20mi. In reality your eyes can still resolve unlit runways from many miles away. You'll lose contrast in overcast conditions but it's usually plenty light enough to see the ground. Overcast day in DCS is much too dark. (Again, generally speaking.)