Green Lights

Well, blue and white lights actually, the lights that line the taxiways and runways respectively.  "Green" because they are solar powered, or some of them used to be. 

When I got here some time ago, all the runway and taxiway lights were solar powered.  I don't believe the Army installed them because of environmental sensitivity but because they don't require wiring up an electrical system that can be controlled from the tower and can stand up to the weather.  Solar powered lights are a lot simpler to install and maintain.  

There is a problem though.  You can't see the darn things.  It doesn't matter how sophisticated an approach aid you have if you can't see the runway when you get close to the ground.  The lights aren't very bright to begin.  In mid-winter after a short day and a long night there isn't much bright left in them.  Combine that with early morning mist, a gray dawn and a runway that is about the same color as the dirt beside it you either don't see the runway or you see it late and there is high adventure on short final trying to land.  High adventure on short final is not a good thing.

Fortunately, some of the warrant officers took the initiative and somehow got decent lights installed on one of the runways.  You can actually see them in the gloom.  For some reason they weren't installed on the primary instrument runway (the warrants were probably gnashing their teeth over what ever prevented that), but at least we have at least one runway with decent lights.

So tree huggers take note, solar is not always good.