As I see a lot of different interpretations and wrong theories out there, this is how it is done for most airlines. I have never worked for an airline where it was any different, in Europe at least it pretty standardized.
- Navigation lights → anytime electrical power is applied to the aircraft. Some airlines never turn them OFF at all, some aircraft the navigation lights will already illuminate when the ground service bus is powered (ground power connected).
- Logo lights → electrical power applied to the aircraft between sunset and sunrise besides advertisement, to indicate physical dimensions of the aircraft, tuned OFF above FL100.
- Beacon lights → turned ON when start-up clearance has been received, either before, during or after pushback. Beacons are normally also used for towing operations. Turned OFF after shutdown with propellers stopped / N2 below 20% or N1 stopped (might be type specific?).
- Taxi lights → turned ON when moving under own power (brakes off), turned OFF when stopped (and brakes set). Usually turned OFF after take-off, turned back ON when landing clearance received until turning into the parking stand.
- Strobe lights → turned ON whenever entering an active runway (either for take-off or crossing), turned OFF when runway vacated.
- Landing lights → turned ON when take-off clearance has been received, turned OFF above FL100, turned back ON below FL100 until runway vacated (together with strobes).
- Wing lights → used for ice detection, can be used during ground operations to indicate physical dimensions of the aircraft (like logo lights), some airlines turn them on for pushback until parked (OFF above FL100) some switch them ON and OFF together with beacon lights (OFF above FL100). Some airlines don’t use them at all, except for ice detection of course.
Additionally, landing and taxi lights can be turned OFF on approach to see the approach light better when landing in low visibility, when in clouds they can actually reduce visibility quite a bit. I have flown a couple of non-precision approaches with clouds and visibility close to the minima where I would have never seen the approach or runway lights with landing lights ON. On precision approaches the minima is usually low enough to see the approach / runway lights regardless.
Strobes and beacons can be turned OFF in clouds when they cause blinding effect.