Military use blue lights?

[CVSiN]

Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats

Originally posted by: CVSiN

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
So I caught a few minutes of the ol' Chuck Norris flick "Delta Force." Apparently the vehicles they used have blue headlights & such. Is this just stupid movie BS or is there a practical use for this in the real world?

yes all Navy on base vehicles have blue lenses on them.. off base veheicles seem to have all white though..
on the carrier even our flashlights have blue lenses in them

does that lessen glare and improve night vision?

well blue light does not blind night vision and cant be seen as far as a white light..
on a carrier they do not allow ANY white light at all becasue you can see it for MILES across open ocean which can give away the ships position.
they have lighting schemes they can set on the ship to make its running lights and profile look like a tanker or cruise ship so they dont want white flashlights all over the flightdeck and hanger deck makinng it look odd.

on base i beleive it has to do with blinding pilots on the flightline so all lights are masked.
red/blue and green are all used in flashlights and blue is all used on headlights for base vehicles that have access to the flight line.

 

[axnff]

Originally posted by: CVSiN

well blue light does not blind night vision ...

Not true. The rod receptors in the retina (responsible for detection of light and about 3 times more sensitive to light than the cones) - or more specifically rhodopsin, the pigment responsible for their sensitivity to light - are most receptive to light centered at 507 nm (blue-green), and almost completely unresponsive past 610 nm (red-orange). From 450 nm (very, very blue) to 555 nm (very green), rods are more sensitive than cones at any level. Any exposure to blue or green light will kill night vision for nearly 30 minutes as the rhodopsin restores from clear to opaque, allowing low-light scotopic vision.

This is why pilots and others who need to maintain night vision always use red lights.

Blue light attenuates the fastest in the atmosphere, has the lowest sensitivity within the human eye for a given output, and does not properly focus on the retina when red/green are in focus. So it has uses for other things.

Our eyes are most sensitive to green light, so it takes the least amount of output to generate an easily viewable image (whether emitted or reflected).