Why do airlines dim their lights on landing?
Answers:
Felidae & Lynn have got this one - it is to prepare passengers for low light levels on evacuation if required due to an abortive take off or crash on landing. This is not always the case - some far east airlines maintain full lighting to allegedly help passenger evacuation - though if the main engines are powered down one wqould assume only the dim battery powered lights would be available!
So they dont see what they are crashing into.
So that there is a crash, people are less disorientated when they leave at night. Ie; if it's bright and glary - then it will take them valuable seconds to adjust to the night light.
At least - that's my take on it.
I think it might be to prevent other aircraft from mistaking them as landing lights or something. When the plane is near the airport, it turns all cabin lights off during the night as these could look like a runway path or landing guide lights to an approaching plane. I'm guessing this.
I think it is so that the passengers get used to dim lights because if the plane crashed then the lights would go out. Also you can see the little lights in the floor directing you to the nearest exit
Definately to let your eyes get used to a dark environment.
Try this at home.
At night stand in a brightly lit room for a minute. Then quickly move into a very dark room and try to make it across to the other side of the room. Don't break your neck!
Stay in the dark room for 10 minutes and your eyes will now be able to see objects inside that dark room.
It takes minutes for eyes to properly adjust to the dark.
Your retina in your eye has rods & cones (cells) that enable you to see light. They work in very different ways and can take time to switch between their use properly.
Cone cells are used mainly in the daylight and the rod cells act as your night vision.
See this for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/rod_cell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cone_cell.
what the bloke above me said.
I kinda believe that it allows passenger to see the scenery outside better since a well litted cabin would be too glaring on the windows.
To reduce the load of the power generators on the engines. This way if the landing must be aborted then max thrust can be obtained from the engines and none is wasted on lighting etc!
I am an aircraft technician!
The answers post by the user, for information only, UKQnA.com does not guarantee the right.