Plain English Meaning

The lights inside the cockpit that let you see your instruments and controls at night, dimmed or coloured so your eyes can still see well in the dark outside.

Full Definition

The interior lighting system of an aircraft cockpit, typically adjustable in intensity and often available in red or low-intensity white, used to illuminate instruments, switches, and charts during night operations while preserving the pilot's dark adaptation.

Context Anchor

Seen in night flying, especially when adjusting cockpit lights before taxi, takeoff, cruise, or landing.

Derivation

“” comes from the older idea of a where operations are , first used with ships and later applied to the cockpit of an aircraft. “Lighting” simply means providing . Together, the term points to light used in the area, not on the .