Here's a piece of sage advice from the rectal data bank to tuck away. One night in the Med, at about 0100, with a very bright full moon overhead, we were in Marshal waiting to push and my B/N says to me: "hey pilot man, is the moon too bright for you? I swear I have never seen a pilot put his fucking dark visor down at night and turn the instrument lights up." I didn't say anything, which probably bugged him. At our push time, I descended on the profile, went through platform, got down to 1200 feet and dirtied up. My B/N says to me: "Okay, funny man, joke's over. raise your damn dark visor. You're spooking me now."
So I calmly say to him: "Hey Dizzy, you see that bright ass moon above us?" He answers "yes." "Do you see this solid cloud deck below us here (we were still in crisp, clear air above it)?" Again, "yes." Okay, well in about two minutes, we're going to descend down through the goo here and break out underneath at about 500 feet in pitch ass black darkness with only about 30 seconds of flying time until you hope I catch a wire without slamming your ass into the fantail first or boltering. Do you want me to have night blindness from this sun-like moon and risk not having my fucking eyes acclimated, or would you rather me have my dark visor down and the instrument lights up so that I can see what I am doing in close?"
He didn't say anything, and about that time we were descending through the goo, I turned the instrument lights back down, and raised my visor, fully acclimated to the darkness, broke out at about 300 feet, and 15 seconds later snagged a 3 wire, eyesight night ready.
He never apologized, but I did hear him weeks later briefing a nugget prior to a night hop to take the bright moon into account if the ship was under an overcast at recovery time!
Good times, good times. Night traps, though.....
