Hello IFC!
I was wondering on when each light should be turned on or off for the airplane. Can someone help me out? Thanks and happy flying!
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Nav Night Bad visibility or when electrical power is on
Beacon right before engine start and turn off when blades stop spinning
Strobe when crossing a runway taking off and the stay on until you clear the runway after landing
Landing when taking of and Below 10000 ft
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So for nav lights it’s for when I have my APU on at my departure airport and leave it on until I am completely shut down with electrical master off and APU off at my destination airport correct?
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Nav Lights - These should always be on during flight and when on ground to indicate the aircraft is active.
Beacon lights - These should be on when the aircraft is pushing back and turning on engines. (should always be on when engines are on)
Strobes lights - These should be turned on when you enter an active runway and in cruise (Turn these off when exiting the runway at your destination)
Landing lights - Turn these on when also entering an active runway and turn off above 10,000ft and turned on below 10,000ft.
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Does APU have to be running for me to turn nav lights on?
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Yes as its the source of electricity for the aircraft but when you turn on both engines you can turn off the APU.
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Ok so nav lights APU must me running to turn them on and when aircraft is completely shut down turn them off correct?
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Yes correct.
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Ok thanks for the help!
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No, it does not.
It does, actually. Unless you have a GPU plugged in and in use, you need at minimum a functioning APU running to keep those NAV lights on. A cold and dark plane can’t power anything.
Battery power would like to introduce itself.
Though I doubt any plane would run nav lights for any expended period of time in battery power, but in smaller planes with no APU then nav lights, and beacons for that matter would come on under battery power before you start the engine(s).
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On jets with an APU, checklist procedures don’t even call for lights on until post APU start. For our CRJ7/900 and E170/175 start checklists, all lights are off until the APU is spooled up.
But that doesn’t mean pilots don’t leave them on anyway on shutdown, lol. If the plane is cold and dark it doesn’t really have an effect.
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Ya, of course. As I said I didn’t think they would seeing as there isn’t much point to having lights on if the plane is not running in any meaningful way. But technically you could, and more importantly in any GA planes that is the only way they can turn on lights pre engine start. Though often they have a less complex lighting setup and so their procedures will obviously differ being a vastly different use case.
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This is exactly how it works 👆 👌
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when descending I beleive you can turn it on above 10,000ft. I was flying a few days ago and I saw it turn on at like FL190
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