Runway lights

[Evilbill]

Why is it that several airports have no runway lights at night? I experience this mostly in north africa. Sort of frustrating to do a 2 hour flight and arrive at destination and have to guesstimate my line up because the airport has no lights or ILS. Dumb.

[Maki Nishikino]

The airports probably don't have them in reality. Oddly I've found airports with taxiway centerline lighting in which they don't have in reality. What airports are these? I can check and see if any lighting is present in reality. I can also check if an ILS is present (or any instrument approach for that matter). Might not have an ILS but other options could be out there.

[Evilbill]

Perhaps the lights are not present IRL. I get that, but you don't know that in game until you get to the airport...Most recent disaster occurred at DTTR. This is a military airbase.

[Maki Nishikino]

This information is readily found on the Internet. The real G1000 and GNS430/530 also will give you this info, no idea if it does in MSFS as I haven't bothered looking.

[CFL]

I has such a runway recently at the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Airport (UHPP) in East Russia.

In MSFS it has only 1 runway with no lights and no ILS, but taxiways have lights.
On Google Maps it shows two parallel runways.
Little Navmap, which uses on older cycle of Navigraph, shows that the missing runway even has 2 ILS approaches.

[Evilbill]

Originally posted by Maki Nishikino:

This information is readily found on the Internet. The real G1000 and GNS430/530 also will give you this info, no idea if it does in MSFS as I haven't bothered looking.

Again, this may be true, but not everyone is going to consult the internet to complete a flight. Maybe they want to fly near something at night and land. In that case you won't know in game until you have actually done the flight, which makes no sense. If you want to claim "realism" on the matter fine, but then make that information available in the game cause..."realism". It shouldn't be realism for one thing but not somewhere else. All or nothing.

[Maki Nishikino]

Originally posted by CFL:

I has such a runway recently at the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Airport (UHPP) in East Russia.

In MSFS it has only 1 runway with no lights and no ILS, but taxiways have lights.
On Google Maps it shows two parallel runways.
Little Navmap, which uses on older cycle of Navigraph, shows that the missing runway even has 2 ILS approaches.

Oh yeah, AIRAC data in MSFS is newer than what the sim world has (I think a new cycle was just rolled into the sim not that long ago). Some navigation aids such as VORs and NDBs are another story (a topic for another thread). One of my local airports has two parallel runways and there is only ~10 foot difference between them (which drives me nuts, lol), I think the AIRAC data will show them having near identical lengths but in the sim of one them is still a lot shorter than the other despite being lengthened a while back.

Originally posted by Evilbill:

Originally posted by Maki Nishikino:

This information is readily found on the Internet. The real G1000 and GNS430/530 also will give you this info, no idea if it does in MSFS as I haven't bothered looking.

Again, this may be true, but not everyone is going to consult the internet to complete a flight. Maybe they want to fly near something at night and land. In that case you won't know in game until you have actually done the flight, which makes no sense. If you want to claim "realism" on the matter fine, but then make that information available in the game cause..."realism". It shouldn't be realism for one thing but not somewhere else. All or nothing.

I understand that but I can't do anything about that except try and help you with the issue at hand. What are these airports? I will take a look for you.

[Evilbill]

DTTR in Tunisia

[Maki Nishikino]

I can't find much info on DTTR, DTTZ seems like the closest with runway lights.

[Neo King Arthur]

You mean this night landing to North Korea? Sounds pretty accurate to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz6eNO6Vlq8

[CFL]

It is still weird to see a way to shiny street lighting for North Korea and blue taxilights at the airport and then a pitch black runway...

[badasscat2000]

Originally posted by CFL:

It is still weird to see a way to shiny street lighting for North Korea and blue taxilights at the airport and then a pitch black runway...

It wouldn't surprise me if taxiway and other non-runway lights were not included in whatever logic Asobo is using for pilot-controlled lighting (or no lighting). So every airport might have them, even if the airport in real life is unlit or fully pilot controlled.

I haven't tested this myself. The couple of airports I use regularly that have pilot-controlled lighting in real life that I've flown over or to in MSFS are just lit all the time.

[Rever]

"It shouldn't be realism for one thing but not somewhere else. All or nothing."
Why not? When you design your own flight sim, then you can decide what is realistic and what is not. You can even decide whether it is worth paying someone to code the screens needed and then type in all the information for every airport in the world.

[Evilbill]

Originally posted by Rever:

"It shouldn't be realism for one thing but not somewhere else. All or nothing."
Why not? When you design your own flight sim, then you can decide what is realistic and what is not. You can even decide whether it is worth paying someone to code the screens needed and then type in all the information for every airport in the world.

Why not? Because it makes no sense. That's why not. I have no problem with the realism aspect of the game, that's cool, I enjoy it. But if you bother to put it in, you should probably also bother to make the information regarding that realism that YOU PUT IN available to another person who may want to use it. Really not brain surgery. After all...YOU PUT IT IN, therefore YOU KNOW THE INFORMATION.

Man some people on here will just jump on any sword to defend this game.

[Razamanaz]

According to this site https://airportguide.com/airport/info/DTTR where it says Runway Lights it just says Intensity. I assume that means there are no lights as other airports show Low, Medium, or High if lights are present.

[HoloByteus]

I take it you're looking for Approach Lighting Systems? They're indicated by acronyms in the runway descriptions for an airport you'll find via google:

MALSR: Medium-intensity Approach Lighting System with Runway Alignment Indicator Lights
MALSF: Medium-intensity Approach Lighting System with Sequenced Flashing lights
SALS: Short Approach Lighting System
SSALS: Simplified Short Approach Lighting System
SSALR: Simplified Short Approach Lighting System with Runway Alignment Indicator Lights
SSALF: Simplified Short Approach Lighting System with Sequenced Flashing Lights
ODALS: Omnidirectional Approach Lighting System
ALSF-1: Approach Lighting System with Sequenced Flashing Lights configuration 1
ALSF-2: Approach Lighting System with Sequenced Flashing Lights configuration 2
CALVERT I/ICAO-1 HIALS: ICAO-compliant configuration 1 High Intensity Approach Lighting System
CALVERT II/ICAO-2 HIALS: ICAO-compliant configuration 2 High Intensity Approach Lighting System
LDIN: Lead-in lighting
REIL: Runway End Identification Lights
RAIL: Runway Alignment Indicator Lights

It is ironic you can get more detail in your neighborhood than your local regional airport, mine didn't even have buildings/hangars just flat and ugly although I should be grateful my ILS was aligned and it did have the proper ALS.