Agreed; I remember in my flight training that airports at night in the middle of the city can be seen as the “black hole” of no lights in the middle of the nightscape (except, of course, the terminal and main aprons, which would be floodlit). Toronto Pearson looked like a missing jigsaw puzzle piece was taken out of the GTA. Chicago O’Hare was visible from cruising altitude at 3AM as its own silhouette against the brightly lit Chicago suburbs with a bright terminal in the middle.
You can’t spot Midway in this picture, but you can ■■■■ well see its outline. Near the top left you can also see O’Hare’s bright terminal (and surrounding shadow):
Those beacons really annoy me, because I can see them often at around 20 miles plus. It is the same as the airfields and in Europe at least, visibility is usually limited by weather, even in summer, with slant visibility down to a few miles.
not sure if they have it to the list but runways are just to easy to find. Also one can see the blue taxiway lights miles up in a clear night, makes no sense. most approach lighting is directional for a purpose and tightly focused to a specific angle.
Keep up-voting this topic. Absolutely bizarre approach lights from unrealistic distances kills night flying immersion - especially with pilots on the dev team. Someone needs to go night flying over there.
I guess the AI which creates the default airports might be a bit sensitive and it puts edge lights into the middle of taxiways !
It should be improved. We can’t buy or use handcrafted airports for every single field. I can’t imagine the community folder /volume) in these case. Default airports should be more operative (Layout - quality of details precision and etc)
Airport beacon lights in front of the plane do not appear until I get within 3 miles. But when I look behind as I am flying, I can see then up to 20 miles away. It would be helpful if when approaching an airport the beacon light could be at least 10 to 15 miles away.
Way too much for me. Mind you, this is northern Europe and weather here, often when flying even in summer, can be pretty much a bowl of milk even at five miles or so. PPLs and CPLs what do you think?
It has been a thing since the sim came out. Some people have sent Zendesk report (including me) and you can still find the threads somewhere in the bug section of this forum. Unfortunately, not many people care about it, so it probably won’t get fixed in the near future. I have tried to find a way to change the initial render/draw distance, but haven’t fount a way to that until today.
Disclaimer: I CAPITALIZE to accentuate and point out significant items and not yelling since I can’t be there in person that’s how I roll.
I agree whole heartily with the sentiments of the OP and I think there is definitely a break down in communication and an understanding of what is meant by airport “LIGHTING”. The “AERODROME BEACON”: white/green (civilian), white/white/green (military), needs to be seen up to about 20 miles out with all of these depending on conditions of course. The “APPROACH LIGHTING” should be visible at altitude and different distances based on what type of approach lighting is installed. The “RUNWAY LIGHTING” should NOT be seen for miles at all angles. The “APRON LIGHTING” should only be seen within close proximity to the airport.
There are a lot of other things it seems that Asobo & Microsoft needs to get experts in, so for me I can only hope they will put their money where their mouth is. They just need to humble themselves and know where their shortcomings and understandings are like they have done briefly and conceded to others expertise. This is definitely on my wish list for now to get right.
Airport beacons do not become visible until you’re on short final. You can see REILs, approach lighting, runway and taxiway lighting before you can see the beacon, which is the exact opposite of what it’s like in real life, especially at night. Those beacons exist to help pilots find the airport from long distances, and to indicate whether the airport is open, VFR, IFR, etc.
Why I continue to see red/green nav lights for airplane during mid-day still baffles me (you can’t even see strobes IRL), and why I can see the beacon during the same conditions continues to be a major drawback.
I have tried and failed to get this thread a Q and A spot with the developers forum.
Disregard, it is now in the Q and A, please vote. It’s already on the bugs list 4th from the bottom listed as 2021, but just a quick word from the developers would be great.
This is one of the things I really appreciate about X-Plane. The runway lighting, I think, is really good. Have you seen how they display runway guard lights?
Too visible airport environments have been a hallmark with every MSFS version I can recall. Weather it’s an issue or a design philosophy, I don’t know. I do know that they don’t look anything like how MSFS portrays them in the real world.
