When to Use Interior Lighting

[iccowan 66]

Hello all. In the real world, when are pilot'a trained to use the interior lighting on the airbus? I noticed there are integ lights and dome lights and some people fly with the integs on and some off so when is the proper time to use them? Thanks!

[Emi 5161]

Hi,

 

while it of course depends on the pilots preferences, the basic theory is to keep them on whenever not required to turn them off.

There are basically three possibilities when to turn them off:

 

1. when it's daylight (surprise!). Even then quite some pilots keep the integ lights on though.
2. when you're on the ground or close to the ground, basically whenever an evacuation might be necessary within the next minutes as while the eyes are able to adapt quickly from dark to bright situations it takes them a long time (up to 30 minutes) the other way round.
3. when looking out for traffic (but seriously, which pilot does not just check the TCAS... yes, you are still supposed to look out.

During flights at night you normally keep the flight deck lighted as bright as possible to avoid getting tired. The lighting situation will help a lot to pretend the body it is not time to fall asleep yet.

 

 

[iccowan 66]

5 minutes ago, Emanuel Hagen said:

Hi,

 

while it of course depends on the pilots preferences, the basic theory is to keep them on whenever not required to turn them off.

There are basically three possibilities when to turn them off:

 

1. when it's daylight (surprise!). Even then quite some pilots keep the integ lights on though.
2. when you're on the ground or close to the ground, basically whenever an evacuation might be necessary within the next minutes as while the eyes are able to adapt quickly from dark to bright situations it takes them a long time (up to 30 minutes) the other way round.
3. when looking out for traffic (but seriously, which pilot does not just check the TCAS... yes, you are still supposed to look out.

During flights at night you normally keep the flight deck lighted as bright as possible to avoid getting tired. The lighting situation will help a lot to pretend the body it is not time to fall asleep yet.

 

 

Okay that makes sense. Thank you!

[skelsey 103]

Just to add to Emanuel's post --

 

It will obviously depend a lot on your preferences (and the preferences of the chap/lady sat next to you!), but in addition to the issues around night vision adaptation and evacuation, think about what happens to your visibility out of the windscreen if you turn on the interior light in your car at night: if you want to be able to see outside to taxi/take off/land, it is probably advisable to dim the flight deck lighting :). Aside from that, the recommendation generally is, as Emanuel says, to keep the lighting bright at night; however, again it comes down to personal preference (I know where I work (not in the air) the official advice is to keep the lighting bright during night shifts for the same reason (avoiding tiredness): in reality, however, the vast majority of people far prefer to dim the lights somewhat overnight).

 

There is one situation where Airbus does have some recommendations regarding interior lighting, and that is in the event of flying near/in storms. The recommendation in this case is to turn all available interior lighting & displays to full bright (dome, floodlights, storm lights and the EISs) to reduce the possibility of being blinded by a flash of lightning.

[lancealotg 5]

I keep the overhead intergrated lighting on from startup to shutdown.

I love the look it gives and the bulbs never seem to burn out.