Red vs. Green in the Cockpit

Which color instrument lighting do you prefer?

  • Red

    Votes: 10 66.7%

  • Green

    Votes: 5 33.3%
  • Total voters
    15
SoCal 182 Driver

SoCal 182 Driver

Cleared for Takeoff
Joined
Sep 11, 2019
Messages
1,068
Display Name
Display name:
SoCal 182 Driver
Friends -

I'm not trying to reignite the age-old "red vs. green lighting in the cockpit debate," but which color to you prefer for instrument lighting, and why?

Thanks!
 
RGB controller, like they have on modern gaming rigs (PC computers).

Does it need TSO?
 
I just by pass the whole thing and bring this guy along....

OqFy7tiBb9HXRgtwvfNu75s_KYfxVquXgzLrqVrLlOI.jpg
 
Don’t think I really have a preference. I grew up being used to red, but got used to using green in the Navy. I’m comfortable with either.
 
Why isn't WHITE a choice? The most important feature is the ability to dim it sufficiently.
 
I'm interested in those advocating for white lighting. I was taught that white was a no-no at night due to the rods and cones structure in the eyes. Has the thinking on that changed over the years?
 
Unless you’re using paper and have a steam cockpit, color choice really isn’t that important these days. Obviously with glass, you’ve got plenty of white light that can degrade night vision, but in night mode or dimmed, it’s not really an issue.

I’ve used red and green in steam cockpits and prefer green. Green tends to allow better contrast because the wavelength is more sensitive to the eye rods and cones. Red is a bit better for night adaptation but not that much better than green to really matter.

NVGs is a different story and use an all green filtered or white LEDs that are compatible with the goggles. STC required as well.
 
Velocity173 said:
Unless you’re using paper and have a steam cockpit, color choice really isn’t that important these days. Obviously with glass, you’ve got plenty of white light that can degrade night vision, but in night mode or dimmed, it’s not really an issue.

I’ve used red and green in steam cockpits and prefer green. Green tends to allow better contrast because the wavelength is more sensitive to the eye rods and cones. Red is a bit better for night adaptation but not that much better than green to really matter.
Click to expand...

I have mostly steam gauges...with a Garmin 530W and a JPI 830. iPad for charts, though I carry a back-up paper chart.

I've long thought that green lighting worked better for me, but when I was speaking with a friend recently, he strongly believed red was better. So, I thought I'd query the smart folks here.
 
SoCal 182 Driver said:
I've long thought that green lighting worked better for me, but when I was speaking with a friend recently, he strongly believed red was better. So, I thought I'd query the smart folks here.
Click to expand...
If I were to re-do the lighting I'd want to install RGB LED strips and 3 dials to set whatever color you want.
 
I was taught that Red is the best for cones vs rods. BUT - notice that night vision goggles project in green light?

Go with what works for you.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Don’t think I really have a preference. I grew up being used to red, but got used to using green in the Navy. I’m comfortable with either.
Click to expand...
When we were rigged for Red in the control room and then I popped into the Sonar room that was rigged for blue I was like "this is way better". And all of them beat wearing those stupid red goggles/shield while rigged for white. That was a lot of years ago, maybe the rigged blue night lighting never worked out.

But I'd vote for blue/white as @donjohnston does.
 
SoCal 182 Driver said:
I'm interested in those advocating for white lighting. I was taught that white was a no-no at night due to the rods and cones structure in the eyes. Has the thinking on that changed over the years?
Click to expand...
The key is DIM. If your lights aren't dim, it doesn't matter what color they are. The argument is that low light vision is primarily done by rods and rods are less sensitive to red light. However, it's not all shades of red, and red light still depletes the rhodopsin (the photosensitive protein) just slower. So a continuous red light is still going to destroy your night vision as well.

Red is still theoretically better than any other color. Green however is right out. The only reason the military uses green is because their artificial night vision stuff is less affected by it.

But the question is what are you going to do with your vision. White light allows you to see all the colors on your charting and instrumentation markings better than monochromatic light of any color.
 
Executive summary, intensity is more important than color, but depending on what you are trying to do, red, green or dim white can all be good choices for specific applications. He uses "science", but no idea if it's right or not. Interesting reading anyways
http://stlplaces.com/night_vision_red_myth/
 
It's not like many of us have a choice.

I have a red lens flashlight and a very bright white light for inspections. The airplane instrument lights are white.
 
I have "instrument white" which is blue and I prefer it over the red it replaced.
 
I prefer red as a carryover from my early flying days.
 
When I was designing my lighting system, I found an Air Force research paper on cockpit lighting. Basically it said that color isn't nearly as important and brightness as far as retaining nightvision. Red and green were the worst for cockpit functionality. White was best followed by blue.
 
I vaguely remember reading something years ago about some study or idea that something about green light was bad in a way because the brain continuously has to decide...is that blue light? is that green light? back and forth like a strobe light..... must have been in some aviation magazine. Now if there's anything to it I have no idea.
regardless...I think I prefer red in the cockpit, although that's based on old steam gauge panels
 
Fun topic as I studied rod photoreceptors in my graduate work.

Rods are much less sensitive to red light, so they are not bleached so badly by a red light. Since the rods are the receptors which are primarily responsible for vision on low light conditions, this allows them to still see non red lights outside better.

Here is a page with an overview on this - http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/rodcone.html
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
Fun topic as I studied rod photoreceptors in my graduate work.

Rods are much less sensitive to red light, so they are not bleached so badly by a red light. Since the rods are the receptors which are primarily responsible for vision on low light conditions, this allows them to still see non red lights outside better.

Here is a page with an overview on this - http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/rodcone.html
Click to expand...

So what do you recommend, Peter?
 
donjohnston said:
When I was designing my lighting system, I found an Air Force research paper on cockpit lighting. Basically it said that color isn't nearly as important and brightness as far as retaining nightvision. Red and green were the worst for cockpit functionality. White was best followed by blue.
Click to expand...

While brightness is certainly important, 20 years of transitioning between white light and darkness and red light and darkness on the bridges of ships tells me that study is probably flawed.

My eyes have always been able to transition to darkness much quicker from red than white light.
 
donjohnston said:
When I was designing my lighting system, I found an Air Force research paper on cockpit lighting. Basically it said that color isn't nearly as important and brightness as far as retaining nightvision. Red and green were the worst for cockpit functionality. White was best followed by blue.
Click to expand...
There has to be more to the story.
That goes against other standard medical knowledge.
Without seeing it, I would speculate that reading paper for example requires much brighter red lights than white light levels. As such the red may be harder on night vision. However, I do not think such situations apply to the modern GA plane with EFB and other tools.
I suggest this specific scenario based on my backlit e-reader. In red/night mode I need a higher light level at night to read than the white backlit setting, roughly 33% more based on the settings. (8% for red vs 6% for white)

Tim

Sent from my HD1907 using Tapatalk
 
tspear said:
There has to be more to the story.
That goes against other standard medical knowledge.
Click to expand...
I did not mean to imply that there was no benefit to red lighting.

What the document said was that while red lighting is superior for retaining night vision, properly dimmed white light reduces the advantages of red so that the difference is relatively small. It also negates the problems red lighting creates for reading colors on charts.

So my takeaway was that if you're flying a ground support mission in an F-16 at 250kts on a dark night in Afghanistan then definitely red cockpit lighting. Flying a GA aircraft to a lighted airport? Not that big of an advantage of red over dimmed white lighting.
 
AggieMike88 said:
I just by pass the whole thing and bring this guy along....

OqFy7tiBb9HXRgtwvfNu75s_KYfxVquXgzLrqVrLlOI.jpg
Click to expand...

That didn't take long, Mike....and I KNEW it was coming!!...even if I had to do it myself! Keep your stick on the ice!

Jim
 
donjohnston said:
It also negates the problems red lighting creates for reading colors on charts.
Click to expand...
Not really. Only color hard to read under red light is red, and both nautical and aeronautical charts don’t use red ink. That’s the reason for magenta on charts.

donjohnston said:
So my takeaway was that if you're flying a ground support mission in an F-16 at 250kts on a dark night in Afghanistan then definitely red cockpit lighting.
Click to expand...
No because you are probably on goggles and red is one of the worst colors for NVGs.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Not really. Only color hard to read under red light is red, and both nautical and aeronautical charts don’t use red ink. That’s the reason for magenta on charts.

No because you are probably on goggles and red is one of the worst colors for NVGs.
Click to expand...

Okay. You win.

Got that everybody? It's got to be red and only red. Further discussion is just a waste of time now.
 
Lets continue the debate.

I think that it depends on if you are using oxygen in your bird at night. The (red) rods when you compare rods effectiveness at high altitude at night in comparison with sea level performance showed negligible elevations of thresholds for red light response, but at high altitude (green) cones did show significant impairment. These response held over almost the entire dark adaptation function. So if you fly at night with no Oxygen, red light is probably the best choice, especially when you include contrast intensive tasks IFR (reading “real” paper approach plates at night). Due to their night function rods overall function does not change much with altitude. Green lights (cones) are probably a better choice if you fly at night with oxygen or in a pressurized aircraft, (green) cones are much better as discerning fine detail in general than (red) rods. But the Cones are significant impaired at higher altitudes, unless you have oxygen.

At sea level both Rods and Cones work pretty good, it is only with higher altitudes do you see a difference in performance and the cones just not working all that well. The longer and higher altitude he worse the effects.

My assumption is when one puts oxygen on at 5000 feet at night, it is the higher activation of the cones ( that have been dormant due to hypoxia) which is occurring, hence greater contrast and everything appears brighter.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Not really. Only color hard to read under red light is red, and both nautical and aeronautical charts don’t use red ink. That’s the reason for magenta on charts.
Click to expand...
Um, no. Magenta will be indistinguishable from blue under red light. Blue is used on charts. Magenta is used because it's one of the primary subtractive colors (hence a single ink color in a full color process). Red lighting will also make yellow indistinguishable from green.
 
Red lights matter
 
SoCal 182 Driver said:
So what do you recommend, Peter?
Click to expand...

I recommend and use red light.

But if you think about it, what matters is how much rod vision you have left after exposure to whatever light you are using. The photosensitivity curves of the different normal human photoreceptors are well known. So there is an equivalent amount of green or blue or white (which is a mixture) light which will yield the same amount of bleaching of the rods as a red light. It will be dimmer of course.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top