About the book: year / 1993-95 Crew. 02/06/1993 When we flew the IL-14 in winter, the taxi headlights, hidden under the glass fairings in the nose, were constantly turned on at night, since their operating mode is unlimited. The altitudes of our flights, somewhere around 1800-3000, usually took place either in the clouds or along the upper edge, and the anti-icing system there was weak, so we visually monitored the flight conditions, observing in the sheaves of yellowish light how snow or rain was flying in our faces or, worst of all, rain and snow - sort of shiny intermittent threads interspersed with white. At a speed of 300 you can see it. In such cases, it is necessary to urgently change the altitude; in winter it is better to move away from such supercooled rain upwards towards dry snow. But what are the capabilities of a low-speed piston airplane: vertical 3-4 m/sec, and the unpressurized cabin did not allow it to climb above 3900. The Tu-154M has signal lights, powerful ones, also hidden under the fairing. Sometimes I play around and turn it on while ascending or descending. But the speed is not the same: the snow charge hits like a volley from a cold flamethrower and instantly disappears; snow and rain - white stripes; in the darkened cabin, light flashes flicker anxiously; but that special, unhurried beauty is no longer there. Ordinary aircraft headlights are very powerful, small-sized spotlights; at high speeds they are retracted, and during takeoff and landing they are released by a special electric mechanism. Sometimes you forget to put it away after takeoff and there’s an extraneous noise in the cabin... until it gets there... You put it away and there’s silence. Once on an IL-18 in Moscow they forgot to turn off and remove the wing lights; sat down in Norilsk during the day - they were burning. And their permissible operating mode is 5 minutes. We survived. It's a shame, of course... but anything can happen. Nowadays it is necessary to have headlights on both day and night to protect against birds. A stereotype has developed during takeoff: remove the landing gear; turn off the headlights, put them away; flaps 15; flaps zero; denomination Then someone at the top gave instructions: if the birdlife situation is calm, the headlights can be left on during the day in order to save them. And it’s more convenient for us to act according to an established stereotype during a flight. You can't save money on matches.