As most of you have probably noticed many airports can be quite dark at night. I do most of my flights during the day so I can enjoy the scenery. But I recently flew two night flights into large airports at night and was pleasantly surprised to see both the gates and parking stands well lit. Perhaps this was part of the lighting update in the last patch?  Has anyone else  noticed this?

Thanks

 

 

I think it would have to be airport specific with a before and after check.  Before this last patch, I recall going into some US class C airports, some which had reasonable apron lighting and some that did not.  Unfortunately I cant recall the exact ones but I have seen this in the the major sim packages with default airports.  If I do come across a dark one again post this patch, I will post it here.

Thanks Mike!

 

I've noticed after the patch that airport lighting is on for every airport at every time of the day.  I don't recall seeing glowing orbs down the center of the runways at noon.  Could be mistaken though. 

2 hours ago, bambam101 said:

I've noticed after the patch that airport lighting is on for every airport at every time of the day.  I don't recall seeing glowing orbs down the center of the runways at noon.  Could be mistaken though. 

Most small airports you turn the runway lights on remotely as needed as you approach.

You COULD turn them on in daylight but I very much doubt anyone would, except maybe as a student pilot learning how to do it.

Sydney International Airport.  Noon.  Lights on.  I don't remember them being on during daylight.  

Does this Sim actually have  pilot activated lighting? Would be awesome if it did. 

As far as I know there is no pilot activated lighting in MSFS, I already asked this question in another thread.

Regarding airport lighting, I agree, some airports are very well lit, especially at gates. I just regret that even on a well lit airport, the cockpit remains fully dark. I flew at night in real life, when you have light on the tarmac, you have a little light entering the cockpit so you can see more or less the cockpit interior and the switches to turn on cockpit lights. Fortunately in MSFS you have this watch light that helps, but it is not very realistic (it is even worse in Xplane 11).

6 minutes ago, Rocky said:

As far as I know there is no pilot activated lighting in MSFS, I already asked this question in another thread.

Regarding airport lighting, I agree, some airports are very well lit, especially at gates. I just regret that even on a well lit airport, the cockpit remains fully dark. I flew at night in real life, when you have light on the tarmac, you have a little light entering the cockpit so you can see more or less the cockpit interior and the switches to turn on cockpit lights. Fortunately in MSFS you have this watch light that helps, but it is not very realistic (it is even worse in Xplane 11).

Ray tracing will fix that eventually.

1 minute ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

Ray tracing will fix that eventually.

Does MSFS use ray tracing?

I thought it wasn't, but I may be wrong...

22 minutes ago, Rocky said:

Does MSFS use ray tracing?

I thought it wasn't, but I may be wrong...

no it doesn't as it is not DX12 .

 

hence "eventually "

1 hour ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

no it doesn't as it is not DX12 .

 

hence "eventually "

You confirm what I was thinking 🙂