Am I the only one who has major problems flying the Dash 8 at night? There's alot of Dash 8 night flights on flightaware, and whenever I try to do one I find myself frustrated, trying to find the point the cursor turns into the hand symbol over and over again when interacting with the VC. Any surface area without backlighting is pitch black. The overhead panel in particular. I can't imagine how these pitch black surfaces in real life wouldn't catch ambient light or refractory light from the backlighting. This is the only plane I have which needs the dome light on constantly. 

Have you tried turning on the dome light on the overhead panel. I use this for startup, pre TOD and shutdown while flying at night. This light provides plenty of illumination to cover all of the instruments and controls.

As I mentioned, I use the dome light quite a bit, and have even experimented with storm lighting. While these are helpful (I'd even say necessary) for pre-flight and cruise procedures, the heavy contrast they create between the cockpit and exterior limits its capability for other modes of flight that are procedurally heavy but also require more situational awareness, like the departure and approach. And sometimes even finding the slim profile of the dome light can be aggravating. It's little things like this that keep me from feeling at home in the MJ cockpit.

 

There's a new add-on out that ads light splashes to any part of the cockpit. It looks interesting but I don't like the idea of adding light sources the real plane doesn't have or piling add-on on top of add-on.

The HDR function in P3D tends to darken the flight deck more than is necessary.  Turning HDR lighting off will correct this issue (although some may not consider this a fix - it is the only solution at this time)

Cheers

My apologies for such a delayed response. I am not using P3D, however. 

Ethan, 

 

Which version of the Q400 are you using?  Please address this issue on the Majestic Forums...as it will be addressed in a more timely manner.

Cheers

Still on 1.012. I'll give 1.013 a shot. If I still find the cockpit too dark, I'll start another thread on the Majestic forums.