I live near a major airport and see commercial planes with huge front headlights shining in the night sky. What could they be good for way up in the sky, though? I get that when they are taking off/landing headlights are necessary. Why not give them lights like a boat, with a green in front and a red in back?
That’s what the marker lights are for not the headlights. Also if it’s a commercial plane as it sounds like it is traffic control and transponders kind of do that.
Marker lights? You mean navigation lights, which are green and red lights. The port side of the aircraft has red lights, and starboard is green. This lets you know which side or direction the aircraft is facing. Boats and ships use the same logic. There is also a red flashing light at the bottom of the aircraft called the beacon, which is used to indicate to the ground crews that the engines are running.
The navigation and strobe lights help with being seen. So do the landing lights. It is why the FAA recommends that landing lights are turned on below 10k feet altitude. They aren’t required, but they are recommended so that the aircraft is easier seen at night as well as day. There is literally no other reason to use landing lights prior to turning final. Anything you can do to make your aircraft more obvious to others is an added safety benefit for obvious reasons. A big bright white light does this quite well.
But due to the added safety of increasing your visibility, it is standard for all airlines to have it in their procedure to turn landing lights on as soon as 10k is crossed. Due to company SOP, pilots are therefore required to follow this procedure and it is purely for added safety. This is why you see all commercial aircraft do this, and why you may see non-commercial ignoring this recommendation.
This is coming from someone with years of commercial aviation experience so take it however you’d like.
I was making the assumption that most people didn’t know what navigation lights, port, aft, etc mean and marker lights is just a general term that I hope most people understand. I am lazy and didn’t feel like explaining but you did a good job.
airplanes are routinely told to watch for a traffic in their vicinity. also, aviation is all about procedures and backups, so if someone makes a mistake, it is good if there is another link in the chain to prevent accident.