Hi Dave,"After a very short time I begun to lose my balance and found it very disorientating. Anyone else experienced that?"....LOL, yes I can relate to that! Probably one of the reasons why a deck chair is considered an essential piece of equipment for all keen star gazers.Mike

Sorry, but I have to disagree here. Darkness is the absence of light and in a dark room one cannot see one's hand in front of one's face no matter how long long is given for one's eyes to adjust to the darkness. There is such a thing as total darkness and if you've been out on the ocean or in the woods, it is downright scary.Take that outside and on a starry night one can make out shapes when superimposed against the background ambient light of the night sky. However, in an area with no light pollution (deep woods, desert, open ocean) night is black. On an overcast night in the same scenario the night becomes pitch black.For instance, in the Army, light discipline is a large thing. In the woods at night it is so dark that a cigarette can give away your position for miles in some cases. Likewise, the strobes or wing tip lights don't prevent you from seeing past them...rather the fact that it is inky black outside does. In the Army when jumping out of a C130 it is uncanny as you jump out into what is essentially a black void with no reference to the ground or horizon.Similarly in an aircraft, it has nothing to do with your eyes being adjusted to the darkness. Even if one turned out all cabin and cockpit lights on a dark night there is nothing to see. Flying away from city lights there is absolutely nothing to see unless one looks up at the night sky. One cannot make out mountains, water, or anything else unless it has the night sky behind it. AND, away from city lights an aircraft with its lights off looks like a black hole moving across the sky as it blocks the stars as it moves. On a cloudy sky that same aircraft becomes invisible. Remember it is the lack of photons that causes darkness. That's why night vision goggles amplify the little bit of photons there are so one can see in the dark. Actually, there are so little photons available that one can actually see the photons which presents itself as a 'grainy' image through the goggles.The point to this is that FS doesn't present a black night and that is inaccurate.

Thank you for replying everyone, very interesting to read all your replies. I totally agree with the pitch-blackness comment. I have been in tropical rainforest in the dead of night while on holiday in Asia and it really was ultra-black - thick overpowering darkness. Our hi-power LED flashlights looked like light sabers lol.Often while flying commercialy I gaze out the window at night and its cool to just see the wingtip strobe & navlight "floating" in space while the beacons lights up the engine pod (PMDG, iFDG & Posky have this down nicely)Carmines file definetly makes a MASSIVE improvement..its just want I needed. As a bonus it even sorts out those silly default runway lights that look like floating spheres! Cheers m8 :)Do you all remember FS4? If you flew at night in cloud in the Learjet and turned on the strobe the screen flashed like a camera bulb! Hahaha I used to get a kick out of that :(

I have flown in mountain areas, where it's all black. You don't have a clue of the horizon. In fact, out here, the condition is known as a black hole, and numerous pilots have ended up flying into terrain, because of it.L.Adamson

This is a good thread but I have some comments of my own. I agree that being in the jungle on a cloudy night far away from civilization can be extremely dark this is something that is really never experienced when it comes to aviation. Now I am speaking from my own experience and knowledge so other people may disagree with me. I will also say that I have much better than perfect vision and I can see things at night that others can not. Actually I think that is part of the issue at hand here, perception, one person may say that something is completely dark while another can see things. Ok, as far as aviation goes there are few times when one would actually be in a completely dark situation, if you are above the clouds there will always be star light at the least and this is enough for me to be able to make out some details. Now if you are below the clouds you often get some light from the ground and reflection of that light from the clouds. You have to be in a fairly remote area to have almost no light. Most of the "idea" of complete darkness is the fact that the cabin and instrument lights take away your ability to see much of the light outside, combine that with someone who can not see that well in the dark anyway and they report complete blackness when in reality this is not the case. I also agree that the settings on your monitor have a big impact, often the dark areas on a screen look "back lit" because people have their contrast and or brightness settings set too high. Much can be done to make night look more realistic just by messing with their monitors settings. Saying all of that I do think that MS could improve night a bit but much of it can be improved with adjusting the monitor and maybe some textures. In the end thought it all comes down to perception ask 20 people what night should look like and you will get 20 different answers since we all see slightly differently, we process information differently and we all have opinions of what looks more realistic.Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

> Ok, as far as aviation goes there are few times when one>would actually be in a completely dark situation, if you are>above the clouds there will always be star light at the least>and this is enough for me to be able to make out some details.>Now if you are below the clouds you often get some light from>the ground and reflection of that light from the clouds. You>have to be in a fairly remote area to have almost no light.>Most of the "idea" of complete darkness is the fact that the>cabin and instrument lights take away your ability to see much>of the light outside, combine that with someone who can not>see that well in the dark anyway and they report complete>blackness when in reality this is not the case.>FWIW, I just walked out the back door, where terrain rises 8000+ additional feet just a few miles away. Since my eye sight is no longer 20/20 (but use to be), I enlisted the aid of my glasses, then binoculars. On this particular evening of high pressure and clear sky's, with no moon in sight, I can't see the mountains at all! L.Adamson

Binoculars swallow light, that's why you need a longer exposure time when taking photos with a big lens.As it has been said, night visibility differs a lot between humans. I can easily navigate around my own house when its dark and see everything. My wife is blind as a bat and has to walk around zombie style.For FS to get is right, darkness would have to implemented area based, otherwise suddenly everybody would complain that it's pitch black dark over city skapes.Christian

> but, why would>you not want to see your aircraft?> Flying a Stealth aircraft? :-spacecraft