How do pilots see at night during flight?
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Starlight, moonlight, street lights, house lights, car lights, beacons, runway lights, landing lights, navigation lights, etc.
Though pilots flying at night will mostly be relying on their instruments.
Military pilots may have additional options for seeing in the dark.
Most important things — other airplanes, runways, and tall structures — have lighting. Cities and highways are also well-lit, which can help with navigation. This is enough to make it possible, though difficult, to fly by sight at night. Most pilots are trained to use instruments, so they don’t even need to see outside the plane.
There are different levels of pilot.
One of the first levels only lets you fly in the daytime with good wether.
The next level lets you fly using all the dials and buttons in the cockpit, called “instrument” flight… because they mostly use the instruments and only look out the window for visual confirmation & landing.
The plane has a special radio that contacts the airport to turn on the runway lights as tgey approach to land. The lights trigger in a sequence that kind of points the pilot to the right path.
The lights blink in sequence on either side of the runway, called “chasing the rabbit”
If you’re flying VFR at night you can use ground lighting like roads and cities to navigate.
If you’re flying IFR, it doesnt really matter because you’re looking at your instruments until you get close to the airport environment, which is very well lit.
The other option is night vision goggles if you’re a helicopter pilot.
One thing you notice right away is the use of dim red lighting in the cabin and to illuminate your instrument panel. This is to preserve your night vision. If you visit a radar control center they also use dim red lighting for the same purpose.
They don’t.
Most commercial flights have the capabilities and are often required to be flown under instrument rules even when the weather is perfect.
You program the computers with planned/ATC instructed navigation routes and just follow it. When you do deviate from programmed routes, you usually just dial in a heading commanded by the ATC.
This is a great question, and I want to relate something that you might not have thought about: the absence of light can tell you a lot. One night my F/O and I were diverted to Asheville, NC. We were flying a non-precision approach we’d never flown before into an airport we’d never been to before after approach control had closed for the night. The weather was clear and a million. (I should point out that this was in the days before we had reliable ground mapping radar.)
As we let down on the approach we could see the airport from about twenty miles out. I was tempted to cancel and fly a visual, but stayed on the approach and leveled off at all intermediate altitudes. We could see ground lights in all directions except directly in front of us, between us and the airport. It struck me a curious, but not much more.
All of a sudden, as we approached another descent point, a whole sea of lights appeared directly in front of us. I realized then that a mountain had been obscuring everything between us and the airport, and that if we’d descended any further we’d have been a smoking hole near the top of it. It was another one of those “today I learned” experiences for a young captain.
There are a few ways.
An instrument takeoff and approach is what I’d wager is most common. You are going to published waypoints and ATC (air traffic control) is tracking you and giving you modifications to your route as necessary to make sure you’re away from other vehicles or obstacles.
You could just fly unaided. It’s wild and beautiful flying over the country side with no aids.
I have flown a bit with night vision. Ours in particular had a minus blue filter, so blues and greens were extremely muted. Our cockpit lighting was blue, so it didn’t wash out the night vision. I landed in farmers fields (with permission) right next to cattle while under night vision. Cool experience.
You don’t need to see when you up there, they have gps and radar to know where they’re going.
The takeoff and landing areas are well lit up though
Can you rely on your instruments to land? Or do you have to be able to see at least a little bit?
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