Question for commercial pilots
Discussion
Not a very interesting question, to be fair, but I'm curious 
I'm staying in Windsor at the minute and, when I go outside for a cig, I tend to watch the planes coming in to land at Heathrow. There seems to be a big variance in the times when the "headlights" get switched on. Some are on from the beginning of the final approach, some aren't even on by the time they've passed over the town.
Is it a per-airline procedure thing, or purely the captain's/co-pilot's discretion as to when to turn them on?
I'm staying in Windsor at the minute and, when I go outside for a cig, I tend to watch the planes coming in to land at Heathrow. There seems to be a big variance in the times when the "headlights" get switched on. Some are on from the beginning of the final approach, some aren't even on by the time they've passed over the town.
Is it a per-airline procedure thing, or purely the captain's/co-pilot's discretion as to when to turn them on?
Famous Graham said:
Not a very interesting question, to be fair, but I'm curious
I'm staying in Windsor at the minute and, when I go outside for a cig, I tend to watch the planes coming in to land at Heathrow. There seems to be a big variance in the times when the "headlights" get switched on. Some are on from the beginning of the final approach, some aren't even on by the time they've passed over the town.
Is it a per-airline procedure thing, or purely the captain's/co-pilot's discretion as to when to turn them on?
Bear in mind most large aircraft will have both a 'landing light' and a 'taxi light' - these can be found in a variety of locations but most commonly the landing lights will be situated in the roots of one or both wings, the taxi light mounted somewhere on the nose gear so it turns with the wheel.I'm staying in Windsor at the minute and, when I go outside for a cig, I tend to watch the planes coming in to land at Heathrow. There seems to be a big variance in the times when the "headlights" get switched on. Some are on from the beginning of the final approach, some aren't even on by the time they've passed over the town.
Is it a per-airline procedure thing, or purely the captain's/co-pilot's discretion as to when to turn them on?
In most cases the specific airline proceedures will determine when the various lights get switched on and off, however it'd be fair to say that probably the most common scenario is that the landing lights come on or off when descending or climbing through 10'000ft/FL100 and the taxi light is switched on when the aircraft's given clearance to land. Depending on the air traffic environment a clearance to land may be given when the aircraft is some distance out from the runway, equally (and much more commonly at LHR) it can be given very late, often as low as two or three hundred feet.
For us the landing lights are turned on as soon as we hear the words 'cleared to land'. That clearance can be given at any point during the approach (depending on how busy it is) so it's very unlikely that we'll put the landing lights on at the same point each time. If there's someone pissing about on the runway the clearance might not come until the very last minute, but if it's quiet we might get it at 10 miles or more.
Spoof said:
Or, if you're a little high and fast, the 'Italian speedbrakes' can add a 100ft a min to the rate of decent.
Must be an Airbus thing?On the 75/75 the procedure that my current outfit use is nose light on for taxing out, cleared for take off - wing root lights on, then all off passing 10,000/FL100. Then inbound passing FL100/100000, wing root lights on & when cleared to land nose light on. In LVPs, possibly none.
Gassing Station | Boats, Planes & Trains | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff