Narrative:

We took-off in daylight and landed in darkness. Enroute; I noticed that the landing lights seamed dim and it was difficult to tell if we were in a cloud or not with the retractable underwing lights. I didn't think much of it; and assumed that the clouds weren't thick. Turning the cockpit illumination way down would allow me to see that there were lights going on and off; but in a very dim method; similar to what I am used to seeing when the lights are turned on not in a cloud.after landing; the tower commented that we did not have our landing lights on for landing. This was not true. I had the lights on for landing. As I was taxiing around I started playing with the various lights on the aircraft and while all lights on the aircraft cast some very little illumination only the taxi light and the runway turnoff lights cast some useable light that could illuminate something before I would have it at taxi speed. The underwing landing lights and the nose wheel landing light cast no useable illumination. They did create a little bit of a glow but literally the light did not reach forward of the cockpit.I have a suspicion that these are led bulbs. They cast a very different light; and [have a] focus different from normal landing lights. I have a further suspicion that they are meant to be a taxi lights; but that they have been used as main landing lights; and do not cast the adequate light for the purposes of flight. As they do not cast the expected amount of light; not only are they unusable as an illumination device for the cockpit flight crew flying the aircraft; but as a safety issue do not allow other aircraft to see our aircraft and judge its relative position in darkness.I did not write up these lights at the time. As every light switch had some sort of functional bulb attached to it; at the time it did not occur to me. I should have written them up; and will going forward. Tower's comment to us on landing at makes that abundantly clear as I ponder it away from the aircraft.[my] suggestions is to verify the lights are correct in the aircraft in question. They do not even provide enough illumination to allow the aircraft to be seen in flight by another aircraft and are completely useless for illuminating a landing at night.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An Airbus 321 Captain reported that the landing lights were very dim. The Captain alluded to the possibility that the wrong bulbs had been installed.

Narrative: We took-off in daylight and landed in darkness. Enroute; I noticed that the landing lights seamed dim and it was difficult to tell if we were in a cloud or not with the retractable underwing lights. I didn't think much of it; and assumed that the clouds weren't thick. Turning the cockpit illumination way down would allow me to see that there were lights going on and off; but in a very dim method; similar to what I am used to seeing when the lights are turned on NOT in a cloud.After landing; the tower commented that we did not have our landing lights on for landing. This was NOT true. I had the lights on for landing. As I was taxiing around I started playing with the various lights on the aircraft and while ALL lights on the aircraft cast SOME very little illumination only the taxi light and the runway turnoff lights cast some useable light that could illuminate something before I would have it at taxi speed. The underwing landing lights and the Nose wheel landing light cast no useable illumination. They did create a little bit of a glow but literally the light did not reach forward of the cockpit.I have a suspicion that these are LED bulbs. They cast a very different light; and [have a] focus different from normal LANDING lights. I have a further suspicion that they are meant to be a taxi lights; but that they have been used as main landing lights; and do not cast the adequate light for the purposes of flight. As they do not cast the EXPECTED amount of light; not only are they unusable as an illumination device for the cockpit flight crew flying the aircraft; but as a safety issue do NOT allow OTHER aircraft to see our aircraft and judge its relative position in darkness.I did not write up these lights at the time. As every light switch had some sort of functional bulb attached to it; at the time it did not occur to me. I should have written them up; and will going forward. Tower's comment to us on landing at makes that abundantly clear as I ponder it away from the aircraft.[My] suggestions is to verify the lights are correct in the aircraft in question. They do NOT even provide enough illumination to allow the aircraft to be seen in flight by another aircraft and are completely useless for illuminating a landing at night.

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.