took my first night flight from Miami int. to Fort Lauderdale.....I was surprised how black it was...very dark...I could only see

a few lights on the ground and the airports...when I watch YouTube videos night flights ,you can see much more of the lights

from all the towns...do I have a setting wrong ???I managed to land but it could have been a taxi way and I probably wouldn't have known..

Night flying really depends on a lot of items.  When you watch a video or see an image it could be modified from what the person's eye actually saw.  For instance, with a camera, you could take a longer exposure and the lights would appear brighter.  Same with videos...  with typical gopro's the camera will adjust some settings to increase the light intake, making the image/video appear brighter than it actually is.

In real life, finding even a large airport, in a busy city can be difficult (unless you're sraight in on final) - it's usually the darker spot in a sea of city lights.

I haven't flown a lot in XP12 due to the poor quality of AA - but I've flown a lot in XP11 and generally speaking I found it to be accurate...there were addons which changed the light styles to more modern LED (the whiter/cooler toned lights) as well

Here's a pic I found going into London Heathrow (appears to be decently exposed/proper lighting) - a very large airport.  I'm guessing this pilot is on a 8 mile final or so.... but it's very hard to see the field even from this close in 🙂

Here's another pic from a passenger looking to the south landing Los Angeles (altitude probably around 1500-2000 ft).  This one has the more high pressure sodium orange-ish lights in US cities.  I also find the lighting to be very accurate in this video.

Now you've got me all curious - I'm going to checkout some XP12 city lighting and report back hehe

heathrownight by Ryan Butterworth, on Flickr

LAXnight by Ryan Butterworth, on Flickr

XP12 does not yet have night lighting for objects such as clouds.

You can't see the clouds at night.

This makes flying XP12 during night periods only worth for procedural training / simulation.

City lights do not reflect on low / mid cloud bases, aircraft lights do not illuminate the clouds. Moonlight does not illuminate the clouds. Not even flashes illuminate the clouds... It's just tooooooo dark at night 😕

11 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

hehe

heathrownight by Ryan Butterworth, on Flickr

 

I saw this flying into Heathrow in 2019, its even more impressive in real life than this picture does justice, I tried to find a picture before but they werent as good as these, way off that fantastic in the sims.

12 hours ago, 4df5 said:

I was surprised how black it was...very dark...I could only see

there are a few things that can affect it, a lot of old scenery libraries that replace xp default dont have night lighting, used to need render distance set such that they get drawn.

4 hours ago, cagarini said:

Moonlight does not illuminate the clouds.

moonlight doesnt illuminate anything... yet..

my #1 on the wishlist for night time.

I still like it tho, it was only a couple of days ago I recorded

 

5 hours ago, cagarini said:

Moonlight does not illuminate the clouds.

It's quite hard to find anything more relaxing than flying VFR-night under a full moon. Bodies of water and the clouds are lit up so beautifully and radiochatter is almost non-existant late at night around here. Which also contributes to the relaxed atmosphere.
Like listening to your favorite radiohost while driving, but in this case the host is ATC and you know they are gently holding your hand while you continue the journey through the darkness.

Edited December 29, 20223 yr by SAS443

double post

Edited December 29, 20223 yr by SAS443