nav. lights in real world

[Owl]

I was wondering how pilots in real life is managing the different nav. lights?

 

As I know, in DCS there are nav light, form light, rotor lights and anti col. beacon. When do they use each lights? That I'm thinking about is, in a combat mission, it can't be specially clever to flash too much, so the enemy can see you, but on the other way, there can also be wingmen and civil air traffic to take care off.

 

Do any know how the real pilots manage the different lights?

 

And in DCS, does it make any differents, how you manage them?

 

Regards

 

Henrik Owl.

[ARM505]

For the civilian world (airliner ops at least) here's a rough guide:

 

- Nav lights (the red, green and white) are always on when the aircraft has power.

- Anti-col (the red flashing light) is on when you're about to start doing something dangerous (ie moving, starting engines)

- Strobes (bright white flashing lights) go on when you enter a runway, and remain on until leaving the runway after landing.

- Taxi light goes on prior to taxi, and normally off when lined up on the runway, back on when you leave the runway on landing, then off again prior to parking so you don't blind the dark knight (Batman) who is guiding you in.

- Landing lights go on during take off and landing.

 

Something like that.

 

In combat (normally at 'Fence in' type of point), all lights except low intensity formation strips/IR marker lights should of course be checked off. That's my guess.

[AlphaOneSix]

In a no-threat environment:

 

Anti-collision light(s): Turned on day or night during startup, and kept on throughout flight and all the way through shutdown. It's one of the first things turned on after the batteries come online, and one of the last things to get turned off. Some aircraft only have red anti-collision lights, and some have both red and white. Typically, white is used during the day, and red is used at night. If an aircraft lacks a white strobe, then the red one is used during the day.

 

Navigation lights: Usually only used at night, but sometimes during the day as well. The biggest use of these lights is to help other traffic identify which way you are travelling and who has the right of way. The red light is always on the left side of the aircraft, and the green one is always on the right. At night, if you saw two nav lights in the distance, and the red one was on the right, and the green on the left, you'd know that you had an aircraft heading directly at you. If you only see green, you know you are looking at the aircraft's right side and he is travelling left to right (relative to your line of sight). When two aircraft approach each other, if Acft. A sees the red light of Acft. B, then Acft. A loses the right of way and should deviate course as necessary. If, instead, Acft. A had seen Acft. B's green light, it means that Acft. A has the right of way and should expect Acft. B to deviate as necessary. There is also a white light at the tail of the aircraft.

 

Rotor tip lights: Used at night only, and usually only during ground run and taxi to indicate the aircraft's moving rotor disk. Tip lights help the crew to make sure they have adequate clearance during ground runs and taxi. They also help identify the aircraft as a helicopter to other traffic. Normally, they are not used during flight unless necessary for traffic avoidance as an additional means of identification and to make your aircraft more visible.

 

Formation lights: Only visible form relatively short distances. Are only used at night to aid wingmen in determining your aicraft's attitude relative to their own. As the name implies, they are used to help aircraft stay in formation at night. Note that they are always mounted on the top of the aircraft, so your wingmen wuld have to be slightly higher than you to benefit from them.

 

In an threat environment, only formation lights would typically be used, since they cannot be seen form long distances and cannot be seen from below the aircraft. All other lights would be left off unless the risk of a collision became greater than the risk of being seen. Note that many military aircraft have NVG-compatible lighting that can only be seen using night vision goggles. In these cases, the IR strobe will be on almost all of the time, unless the enemy is suspected of having night vision equipment.

 

In DCS, I believe that having lights on will help you to be seen by the AI, which is always a bad thing, so it's best to fly with the completely off unless you're trying to help your online buddies find you (although in those cases they should be on your ABRIS via datalink, right?)

Edited October 23, 2009 by AlphaOneSix

[Skkuda]

Thanks AlphaOneSix.....!!!

 

Thats invaluable info to me like many of your answers!:thumbup:

 

Skkuda