A small aircraft flight crew flew at 9;500 ft near the solar generating station and experienced a li...

Narrative:

The pilot and crew approached the solar generating station located south of las vegas; nv. Pilot noted the notams issued about the facility. The light generated from the station was blinding to both pilot and crew. The bright light was almost blinding from a distance of 20 plus miles. This facility generates three bright lights on a 360 degree arc around the facilities. The light from the facility was very similar to that seen when looking at a welder. One crew member complained they only looked at it briefly and felt it hurt their eyes in a manner similar to that caused by snow blindness. All crew-members were wearing sunglasses which did not appear to reduce the glare.the pilot and crew-members agree with language in the notams that this facility poses hazards to aviation and passengers. On the previous day the same pilot and crew flew a similar mission near the solar generating station near coalinga; ca. The generating station there is smaller and the reflectors are one directional which reflect the bright light toward the north. It does not appear to be as hazardous because of the mono directional characteristic and it is not on any obvious approach paths to major airports.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A small aircraft flight crew flew at 9;500 FT near the Solar Generating Station and experienced a light similar to a welder's arc; which reflected from the tower itself was blinding 360 degrees for twenty miles.

Narrative: The pilot and crew approached the Solar Generating Station located south of Las Vegas; NV. Pilot noted the NOTAMs issued about the facility. The light generated from the station was blinding to both pilot and crew. The bright light was almost blinding from a distance of 20 plus miles. This facility generates three bright lights on a 360 degree arc around the facilities. The light from the facility was very similar to that seen when looking at a welder. One crew member complained they only looked at it briefly and felt it hurt their eyes in a manner similar to that caused by snow blindness. All crew-members were wearing sunglasses which did not appear to reduce the glare.The pilot and crew-members agree with language in the NOTAMs that this facility poses hazards to aviation and passengers. On the previous day the same pilot and crew flew a similar mission near the Solar Generating Station near Coalinga; CA. The generating station there is smaller and the reflectors are one directional which reflect the bright light toward the north. It does not appear to be as hazardous because of the mono directional characteristic and it is not on any obvious approach paths to major airports.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1205014
Time
Date	201409
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZLA.ARTCC
State Reference	CA
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Cessna Aircraft Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Cruise
Route In Use	Direct
Flight Plan	None
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying Single Pilot
Qualification	Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Commercial Flight Crew Instrument
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 50 Flight Crew Total 3500 Flight Crew Type 2000
Events
Anomaly	Inflight Event / Encounter Other / Unknown

A small aircraft flight crew flew at 9;500 ft near the solar generating station and experienced a light similar to a welder's arc; which reflected from the tower itself was blinding 360 degrees for twenty miles.