Agree with a lot of the items on here. My number 1 issue right now is definitely the runway edge lights not being visible from 360 degrees. It makes flying a circuit (traffic pattern) at night very difficult, particularly on downwind it’s impossible to judge your spacing from the runway.
My number 2 isn’t necessarily an issue, but a request for what I think is a detrimental feature. Have the airport lighting be scripted to only turn on in the hours from dusk til dawn as well as in reduced visibility situations. Also the implementation of variable lighting intensity would be brilliant.
Here is information from the Jeppesen Airways manual on runway lighting:
There are 3-6 stages of intensity depending on the airport (some only have 1 where the intensity cannot be adjusted, typically stage 1 lighting).
Stages 1, 2 and 3 are omnidirectional to provide guidance in the circling area (visible from any angle, 360 degrees).
Stages 4, 5 and 6 are unidirectional (visible only when aligned with the runway). (Stages 4 and up have stage 3 lighting where the user is not aligned with the runway)
Intensity is typically set based on ambient visibility.
Greater than 5000m day OFF
Greater than 5000m night STAGE 1
4000m-4999m Day STAGE 4
4000m-4999m Night STAGE 2
2000m-3999m Day STAGE 5
2000m-3999m Night STAGE 3
0m-1999m Day STAGE 6
0m-1999m Night Stage 4
Now regarding airport beacons as discussed above they should be designed to be visible from a minimum of 8km and from an altitude between 1000ft-5000ft.
Hopefully this gets some attention during future updates. Overall the sim is doing amazing. Keep going.
ALL of the lights in FS2020 need to be turned down (and made much smaller) IMO. While we are at it, there is far too much ‘atmospherics’ surrounding the lights. I think this has a tendency to make them seem even bigger (brighter) than they are or should be.
All of the comments about airport lighting are spot on. They are in a word ‘ridiculous’ from a realism (read: Simulation) standpoint.
Sadly with everything else that needs fixing I doubt we are going to see any attention payed to this for quite a while, if at all. That in and of itself is not a bad thing, there are far bigger fish to fly at the moment. It’s just a sad thing that it’s come to that point.
From a pure simulation point of view, FS2020 (as good as it often is) ain’t it. That is my biggest gripe with MS/ASOBO. Bugs and graphics can be eventually ironed out and improved. But to make this a true simulation of flight is going to require an entire re-write I’m afraid. And that is not going to happen for years.
Also, the blue taxiway lights have an LOD problem. From a distance, they are simply a blue light, closer up, they morph into a yellow post, and really close in, they get their blue light back.
I’ve noticed that runway lighting has been apparently changed recently. I can see runway lights clearly when aligned with the runway but from the sides, they are only visible from a short distance. I’m no pilot…is this realistic?
Oddly enough, the way Sublogic rendered the runway lights and city lights made it nearly impossible to distinguish a city surrounded runway until you got within maybe 5-3nm of the airport. Unbelievable how every version of FS since then has been unable to manage that.
I agree. Also the runway lights make airports way too easy to spot in daylight. Its is not like that IRL - specially if the airport is in a dense urban area. In many cases IRL you can be very close to the airport and still cant see it in the sea of grey!
Daytime lighting feels a bit cartoony, the runway stands out too much.
This unrealistic problem was never mentioned in any developer update. But they told that they make the product for the simmers. Hope they take the airport lightning into account too.
VASI / PAPI lights are far too dim in daytime operation in FS2020. These lights should normally be seen clearly at least 5 miles away on final approach. They need to be bumped up in brightness a notch or two.
Are there any new developments relating to this? In particular fixing runway lights not visible from 360 degrees and minimum having the lights turn off during the day and on during low visibility. These are functional aspects which are encountered on every flight. I don’t know why this doesn’t have a higher priority than say the mirrored textures on the 787.
Turn on rotating beacons regardless of distance to airport.
When RW flying at night, airports without rotating beacons can be hard to find, especially in the midst of city lights. In MSFS, for those that have beacons, Asobo has chosen to keep them turned off except when relatively close to the airport. This lack affects all MSFS users, regardless of what they’re flying & where. I can’t see any downside to turning them all on during all hours of darkness, since the required info (time of day, location of airport, if & where there’s a beacon) is already there - obviously.
Back in the X-plane days there was a plugin that allowed Pilot Controlled lighting. So only the beacon was on (at airports that had PCL) until you tuned the frequency of the airport and did the 3-5-7 click thing. They would turn on for x minutes and then back off. Just like IRL.
