Why were lights on?

[flyingscared]

First off I recently returned from a trip to Kilimanjaro and the forecasts made here prior to my trip were spot on. Thank you for the forecasts - eased my flying phobia!

While flying from KIA to AMS we crossed through an area of tall thunderstorms over southern Sudan. The storms were actually quite spectacular to see, complete with bolts streaking across the clouds. Fortunately, we only received some light turbulence from the storms, even though at times they seemed pretty close (but I bet they were not really that close).

Here is my question. Several times as we passed through the storm system I noticed that what I am assuming were the landing lights came on (they also came on during landing at least), just for a minute or less, and then went off. Does anyone know why this was the case? I almost was wondering if the pilots were using the lights to look at clouds in front of them. We were flying in a 777 (very nice aircraft by way). Any thoughts?

[tb_neg]

I'm guessing they were just checking out the scenery to check for stuff that perhaps wouldn't show on the radar.

[B744drvr]

Sometimes at night when it's a bit bumpy you switch on the landing lights to see if you fly through any high clouds. These cirrus clouds don't show up on radar and will affect the smoothness of the flight, so climbing a few thousand feet is a way to avoid some bumps if you see the tops. The intensity of the landing lights is unfortunately not enough to see clouds at greater distance.
Sometimes the landing lights are switched on during flight to 'greet' other aircraft flying in opposite direction as well :-)
Or, in Africa where most airspace is uncontrolled, to show other aircraft where you are so collisions can be avoided as there are still some aircraft flying out there without a transponder...
It is quite impressive to see the thunderstorm clouds in Africa as they can reach up to heights of more than 55,000 feet and because they are mostly isolated they are easily to avoid. But hitting any part of a cloud that size will give you considerable turbulence so playing with the weather radar a lot is a must do..