Unrealistic airport lighting distances

and you saw it as a big haloish blurry beam in fair weather? I think we all agree that the beacon implementation is not “reflecting” how it is in real life. :grinning:

I have looked at every single file in the FS-Base and FS-effects.

The issue is the draw distance of the beacon airport tower. It has little to do with the light effect. In fact, I found the light effect and was able to make it so that it stayed visible up to 15nm, however that persistence didn’t occur until it first activated at about 2.8nm, which is actually the physical draw distance of the tower itself.

The beacon is initially attached to the tower, but persists as a light effect after the tower is removed as you fly away.

The tower draw details are loaded deep into a random bgl that we cannot access.

It’s a big bummer.

On the flip side, for some reason approach lights are actually being physically drawn up to 30nm away, which seems like a massive error and waste of draw effort. Check this: the lights are attached to the parameters of the runway and so the runway has a massive draw distance so you can see it far away, which makes sense, but the result is that it draws the approach lights when it draws the runway. This is what gives the error of being able to see them.

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@dasmachine79
Infact, the city & the roadway night lightings are also not of that intensity and vibrancy in the sim as they are in the real life,also because of that the approach lights become distinguishable.
If the city night lightings are made more dense ,intense and vibrant, the runway lights would have blended with the surroundings to a great extent.

On top of all of this only CAT II / III instrument approach runways with a barrette approach light system have sequence flashing lights (at least in Europe) and only switched on in low visibility together with the supplemental approach lights in the final 300 m. Aerodrome beacons are only used in some European countries and are white only.

To be clear, do you mean the sequence flashing lights (running rabbit) being to bright? Or the Runway End Identifier Lights (REIL) as they are not the same thing.

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Both are too bright.

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Actually, let me clarify. The static approach lights appear to be OK. The running strobe (rabbit) is the one that is too bright. The flashing REILs are also too brights.

And yes, the fact that all of these are turned on during daytime clear skies is another related bug.

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The approach lights of the opposite runaway end should not be visible.

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What airstrip is that?

ENBV Norway

There appears to be a partial fix (or improvement) to airport lighting recently. Hopefully this is a sign of some dedication to this cartoonish overlay to what is transformational scenery technology. Directional lighting, including approach lights appear to now be masked if your camera/aircraft view is past or near a 180 degree plane on the light. So approach lights are there, then if you move just a little toward their back side, they disappear. They still have a LONG way to go. If you orbit a well lit airport at FL200, you’ll still see the rabbit approach light and airport beacon in 8-bit lighting as if it was 10 feet away. And you’ll still see the REIL lights at the end of the runway. At least now you’ll only see 1/2 of them, those that are facing you.

Unfortunately, this simple fix makes runway lighting act strangely. A runway edge light is a 360 degree light, with the lens colored if in the last 1000 feet or last 1/3 of a runway (white vs. yellow). This fix makes the light turn OFF when you go along side the light then flip to the correct color and turn on as you pass it. Very unrealistic.

Runway and taxiway lighting still do not appear to be HDR. So the light casts no reflection on the ground. Cartoonish… The ramp lighting illuminates the hangars like sunshine, but the runway and taxi lights are like floating orbs from minecraft… Looking forward to continuous improvement!

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This issue happens with the trucks at the airport also. The headlights are strong near but when you change angle or zoom out the lights are gone from the trucks.

Lighting in runways are ridiculous bright. Please consider to revert back the originals

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The rotating beacons for airports should be visible for a much greater distance at night. (Weather permitting). On a night flight, it’s typically the rotating beacon that’s the first thing one sees from far away that tells you where the airport is - not the runway lead-in lights…

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My main issue that it is hard to see the approach lights until I am very close.

adding my vote.

I am locating airports by the chasing rabbit… not the airport beacon.

Also the light orbs IMO are too ‘fat’ and look cartoonish. They could all be reduced by 50% in diameter.

One of the greatest visually immersive areas of an accurate approach lighting is the key when one transitions from instrument to visual for approach. I find that MSFS developers need to consider investing in improving this for better realism. Aircraft, Navigation lighting and city lighting tuned to each light emitting power (candela) in the overall light scene.

Examples:
Omni-Directional Approach Lights (ODALs) – The strobes on approach.

  1. Cruising at FL390 day or not should not allow for Omni-Directional Approach lights (ODALs) to be seen.
  2. These ODALs have limited candelas (15K-5K) which is essentially the same as the old “candlepower” unit. The sun brightness is estimated an estimated equivalent to the light emitted by, or 3 octillion candles.
  3. ODALs have a limited view angle around 8 degrees vertical and 360 horizontal. So, you have to be low if you are close to see them

AI Aircraft nav lights seen even is situations were the AI aircraft is between you and the sun…

Unidirectional lights which are used in the approach landing system these tend to have a minimum of 30 degree horizontal beam and 10 degree vertical beam significantly off these angles will start to lessen the brightness and ultimately any light seen from them

I hope the team can invest time into making lighting more realistic.

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Devs need to be made aware of these issues!

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+1 to this topic, airports are too easy to locate, especially when they’re in the middle of a city.

There’s a combination of two effects:

  1. lights too bright and omnidirectional
  2. paved surfaces (like taxiways and runways) artificially glowing even without these lights (kind of like a Sepia mask is applied to the airport).
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Absolutely, I too have noticed this. The taxiway and runway surfaces has an artificial glow as if the sepia texture is also applied on the airports. When we see from above or from a distance, we can clearly spot the taxiways and runway surfaces. Usually they should be dark unless otherwise illuminated by some light source, but in the sim all paved surfaces at the airports are self illuminated. This might be due to the already existing sepia texture in the sim.

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