Red cabin lights.

[seba1976 98]

Does anybody know if the military helicopters really use red light for cabin illumination? I remember some addons for OFP had that feature, so when you where flying beyond enemy lines, at night, you had the option turn on cabin lights and they where red.

So the first thing would be if there's something like that IRL, and if it is so, why red and not blue, or green... I'm just curious but the we were talking about it with some friends and there were a lot of crazy ideas about why the lights have to be red and things like that, but nobody really knew what we were talking about :D.

Any light (;)) on the matter would be appreciated.

[W0lle 1052]

Yes there are red cabin lights in military helicopters.

The purpose of that is that red light preserves your night vision ability.

[sparks50 0]

Old pirate captains used a patch over one of their eyes, moving it from one eye to the other

when going under deck, to preserve the natural night vision(large pupils) for the dark rooms.

Perhaps a solution for the modern day air force? :p

[seba1976 98]

Old pirate captains used a patch over one of their eyes, moving it from one eye to the other

when going under deck, to preserve the natural night vision(large pupils) for the dark rooms.

According to the "mythbusters", it's posible, and it was fun to see them trying :D.

---------- Post added at 12:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:30 AM ----------

Yes there are red cabin lights in military helicopters.

The purpose of that is that red light preserves your night vision ability.

So red light allows you to see more without shrinking you pupils... interesting. Thanks.

Is it supposed to be a property exclusive to red light or colors like blue or green would do the same?

[Student Pilot 0]

I know red and green lights both preserve your night vision. Both colors are encouraged for night flying in civil aviation. Whether or not blue light also preserves night vision, I do not know.

-Student Pilot

[max power 21]

Red light is low intensity light. It is close to the infrared spectrum and has a low frequency. Violet light would be the most intense visible light frequency. The order of light frequencies from the least intense to the most intense is represented by the neumonic ROY G. BIV. Orange light would then dialate the pupils slightly more than red but less than yellow or green.

[mr_centipede 31]

I guess thats why in navy ships, when action stations was called, all lights were turned off and red lights lighted up. so incase the ship lose its power (and lights) the sailors wont be blinded too long so that they can do any drills they've been drilling

[richermartyn 10]

Yes Wolle.

I think Seba know this. She want something different information.

Am I right Seba?

If you have same problem then tell me.

[seba1976 98]

Thanks everyone for the good answers. I think a friend of my will end up changing their boat's lights from blue to red after all :D.

---------- Post added at 12:00 AM ---------- Previous post was Yesterday at 11:54 PM ----------

Yes Wolle.

I think Seba know this. She want something different information.

Am I right Seba?

If you have same problem then tell me.

I'm not sure what you're talking about :). It seems you overestimated me, I didn't know what Wolle told me. And maybe it was a typo, but I'm not "she" ;). Anyway thanks for the good spirit.

[4 IN 1 0]

AFAIK dim red light are also more hard to be visible in dark then other colour

[the_shadow 0]

AFAIK dim red light are also more hard to be visible in dark then other colour

true, unless you watch it with NVG´s.

then it´s much easier to spot then green...

[max power 21]

That would be due to the infrared bias of NVGs.

[Daniel 0]

Old pirate captains used a patch over one of their eyes, moving it from one eye to the other

when going under deck, to preserve the natural night vision(large pupils) for the dark rooms.

Perhaps a solution for the modern day air force? :p

V Bomber pilots had a patch over one eye in case a nuke went off nearby, that way only one eye would be blinded. :cool: Not quite the same purpose, but they've been used! :p

[kavoven 4]

AFAIK dim red light are also more hard to be visible in dark then other colour

true, unless you watch it with NVG´s.

then it´s much easier to spot then green...

Our eye has two different kind of receptors, one that working better during day (better to spot red light) and one thats working better during night (blue light.)

They're called rods and cones.

Thats for example why highway signes are blue (at least in many places in Europe) since you can simply see the colour blue better at night :)

[MehMan 0]

They're green here. Motorway signs are in green, once you hit those you can go 130km/h, blue means 100 km/h. :D

[kavoven 4]

For those who are interested:

Photopisch = photopic = rods = rather red

Skotopisch = skotopic = cones = rather blue

(You don't really see colour with them, thats what other receptors are for)

The curves display the sensitivity of each mechanism. Further red reaches the maximal sensitivity after 7 minutes, blue takes much longer (about 30)

Second one is even in englisch:

[source: my course at university, we learned that during the first semester]

[LeftSkidLow 1]

Red lights can kind of suck, they are pretty good at making magenta airspace on US sectional charts disappear. No big deal until it's Class-C airspace you surprised to find yourself in. Then you have the green lights that ruin the terrain relief.

Whats even worse is how the red light's on the instruments make the never exceed markings disappear. Airspeed, rotor RPM, manifold pressure or torque, TOT. It's kind of surprising in a night autorotation when you glance at your rotor RPM, and those handy little markings are gone, but you get good at hearing the RPMs eventually.

Edited August 29, 2009 by LeftSkidLow

[seba1976 98]

Red lights can kind of suck, they are pretty good at making magenta airspace on US sectional charts disappear. No big deal until it's Class-C airspace you surprised to find yourself in. Then you have the green lights that ruin the terrain relief.

Whats even worse is how the red light's on the instruments make the never exceed markings disappear. Airspeed, rotor RPM, manifold pressure or torque, TOT. It's kind of surprising in a night autorotation when you glance at your rotor RPM, and those handy little markings are gone, but you get good at hearing the RPMs eventually.

You know, you are making it looks as if it was all designed by a badly informed engineer :D. How could they made such "mistakes" and why haven't been corrected?

[LeftSkidLow 1]

You know, you are making it looks as if it was all designed by a badly informed engineer :D. How could they made such "mistakes" and why haven't been corrected?

Well obviously they can't help the physical properties of the light, but the FAA makes the sectional charts, and yes they are pretty badly designed, like many other things FAA gets involved with. The red paint on instruments is bad design, yes you get used to it, but they could have used other colors or another method to mark the limitations. They are red simply because red is accepted by everyone as "stop" or "danger" but I think pilots are smart enough to recognize the limitations if they had been painted blue or something else.

[4 IN 1 0]

:j:

Well obviously they can't help the physical properties of the light, but the FAA makes the sectional charts, and yes they are pretty badly designed, like many other things FAA gets involved with. The red paint on instruments is bad design, yes you get used to it, but they could have used other colors or another method to mark the limitations. They are red simply because red is accepted by everyone as "stop" or "danger" but I think pilots are smart enough to recognize the limitations if they had been painted blue or something else.

here's the problem, not everyone is as smart as you think;)