First PP flight

[EHM-1532 Søren]

I Just finished my first PP flight from EHAM to EGLL in the A320.Thumbs up to the management team, cookies are on me guys. You did a great job setting this up.
I did notice a bug though, It seems that when I retract my gear thge landing light gets turned of and hence I am awarded a penalty. Apart from that I had a great flight and I will surely have many more with PP.

Søren Jensen
EHM1532

[EHM-1150 Armando]

Hi Soren,

thank you for the cookies

what happened about your penalties as you can see on the flight analysis:
- you must turn on the strobe lights before turning engines on;
- you did not have landing lights on at takeoff and when descending; as you might know, you must have landing lights on allways below FL100, no matter if you are climbing or descending; you can turn them off above FL100;

We are glad that you enjoyed.

Best regards
Armando Chibante

[EHM-1532 Søren]

The strobes well.. that was me hehe. But as for the landinglights, I had them on but as soon as I retracted my gear on take off I got the penalty even though the switches were all turned on.

[EHM-1617 Iain]

Eh? I thought strobe lights were only turned on when rolling down the active and turned back off after vacating? I thought that it was the rotating beacon that had to be on before the engines and off after them.

[EHM-1001 Robert]

Hi there,

as I know, the rotating beacon is a sign on the ground, and that is why it is used during (and before) startup, and you turn it off when entering the runway for takeoff. I used to turn it on before landing, so I shut down the engines with beacon ON.

The strobe light is for avoiding accidents, therefore you should use it during the whole flight, especially in bad weather.

Correct me, if it is not right

[EHM-0005 Maarten]

Armando, I thought we removed the strobe light penalty?

The strobe light is indeed used to avoid collisions, but it is not required to use it on the ground (you would blind the person that is taxiing behind you). During flight I would advise to use it, but it is not mandatory.

If you're flying in fog you don't want to turn on your strobe lights because that would blind you (smaller aircraft, real life).

[EHM-1150 Armando]

Hi,

my mistake; I made a confusion between strobe and beacon lights above and meanwhile forgot to remove the strobe lights penalty.

All will be corrected by 20H00 Zulu when I'm back home.

Sorry for the incovenience
Armando Chibante

[EHM-1539 Pierre]

To be clear, beacon is mandatory from before startup to after shutdown.
It shows the aircraft is active or about to be. Between those two moments, it's used for collision avoidance too. It's like, the minimum, when the weather is CAVOK.
From my own private pilot (VFR) experience, it's not mandatory to turn landing lights on below FL100, it's at the pilot discretion, if the weather requires it or if there is convergent traffic etc.. (in France at least and for VFR).
Strobes are always used though, from the take off run to the after landing.
Nav lights are at the pilot's discretion like the landing lights.

Of course it's, again, in France and VFR. I don't know about other countries.

[EHM-1670 Bill]

Last time I spent a day at LHR every plane was coming in with its lights on. From watching them through binoculars and listening to ATC they were switching them on when given clearance to land. Wonderful sight  - planes as far as the eye can see all lit up - that's called the 'string of pearls' when they are all in a straight(ish) line and evenly spaced.

[EHM-1754 Anthony]

i did my frist flight with it today, only had to errors, landing lights and becon.