Yes all the time. And different settings throughout the flight.

I have the Storm lights either on or off, too lazy to set the dimmer switches and the only time I have the those lights on are at the gate or during cruise.

NGX Displays i just leave them where they are and turn on the panel back lightings to around half, if im flying in lightning i set the flood light to BRIGHT.

I did not know this was its purpose. Thanks for sharing!

 

No problem - now we can just hope PMDG get that golden colouring perfect for the panels. That with the green illuminated switches on the maroon flight deck :wub:

For those people who owns either the NGX or the MD-11, do you actually use the adjustable dimmer function for the cockpit lighting? Or do you use them only as an on-off switch?

 

I've never used it myself to be honest, either it's full brightness or off for me. I found the dimmer makes the cockpit lighting look rather ugly with a lot of color banding.

 

For me, the dimming is essential during night flights. Wouldn't want to miss it.

If you set up enb series well, then the panel lighting etc can look very realistic. It also mean that when off at night it will be dark In your cockpit, so you will need to turn some lightening on to see anything.

 

It's a bit of trial and error to get enb set up to look good for cockpit, taking into account your monitors, and also ensuring the lighting outside looks right at various times of day. But when you do, it makes night time flying very atmospheric.

I use the dimmers all the time. They are cool, very useful at night and are one of those small details that separate PMDG from the rest.

i use the dimmers any time it isn't daylight...

 

I have always liked a very dark flight deck, so in the actual and simulated flying I tend to dial the brightness down on everything forward of the cockpit door.

 

Flying the line, few things annoyed me more than an FO would would keep the screen brightness up so high that it illuminated his white shirt... i found that to be very distracting to my vision.

 

I rarely enjoy the use of any flood lighting or directed lighting, unless it is necessary to read the chart or the checklist.

Dimmers work great with the VRinsight mcp, using Linda to assign some of the dials to them. Change in illumination level would be smoother in an ideal world, but It's a nice change to have something other than just on/off.

 

 

I use them all the time - to the point where I now get frustrated with any add ons that don't have the feature.

It's important to remember that dimming the displays is extremely important in real life, especially during the night time. Going too bright will affect your eyes performance in dark (night vision, not sure what it's called officially), and that might lead you in dangerous situations. I'm flying an analog C172, and during the night I always dim the GPS display all the way down. Even then it's perfectly readable and you'll see better.

Fun fact: it takes about 20 minutes for human eyes to get used to the dark and see perfectly. But if someone turns on the lights for just a second, you will lose your sight. Think about that in the cockpit.