A320 first officer discovers a pfd that is too bright on its dimmest setting. A replacement pfd is a...

Narrative:

At some point during preflight setup I noticed that my (first officer) pfd was too bright at its dimmest setting. I turned it off and on and tried to dim it. It wouldn't get any dimmer and I knew it would be a safety hazard in flight; like a flashlight in my face. I conferred with the captain and we called maintenance and wrote it up. A mechanic came in and looked at it and said; incredibly; 'is that a problem?' I said yes it's too bright. Another mechanic came and said we will be delayed or they could defer it. We said we could defer it because the weather was good enough. After about 10 minutes he came back and after several iterations of different solutions he replaced the pfd scope and ran the tests. It was still pretty bright but workable. The mechanic said these scopes come from the vendor that way and they have no way to dim them. He said it is a problem; because the first person to check the brightness on them once they come from the vendor is the pilot using it. These bright scopes are a hazard and it looks like the only way to fix the problem is to replace all those that are too bright and make the vendor adjust them correctly. Apparently; quality control at the vendor is very poor according to the mechanic. It might be wise to have someone in maintenance check the brightness when we get them from the vendor and send the bright ones right back; instead of taking delays on the ramp.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A320 First Officer discovers a PFD that is too bright on its dimmest setting. A replacement PFD is also too bright and the Mechanic explains that this is the way they are coming from the vendor.

Narrative: At some point during preflight setup I noticed that my (First Officer) PFD was too bright at its dimmest setting. I turned it off and on and tried to dim it. It wouldn't get any dimmer and I knew it would be a safety hazard in flight; like a flashlight in my face. I conferred with the Captain and we called Maintenance and wrote it up. A mechanic came in and looked at it and said; incredibly; 'is that a problem?' I said yes it's too bright. Another mechanic came and said we will be delayed or they could defer it. We said we could defer it because the weather was good enough. After about 10 minutes he came back and after several iterations of different solutions he replaced the PFD scope and ran the tests. It was still pretty bright but workable. The mechanic said these scopes come from the vendor that way and they have no way to dim them. He said it is a problem; because the first person to check the brightness on them once they come from the vendor is the pilot using it. These bright scopes are a hazard and it looks like the only way to fix the problem is to replace all those that are too bright and make the vendor adjust them correctly. Apparently; Quality Control at the vendor is very poor according to the mechanic. It might be wise to have someone in maintenance check the brightness when we get them from the vendor and send the bright ones right back; instead of taking delays on the ramp.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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	931756
Time
Date	201102
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	Marginal
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	A320
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Parked
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	PFD
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Flying
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 250 Flight Crew Total 8600 Flight Crew Type 1120
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe

A320 first officer discovers a pfd that is too bright on its dimmest setting. A replacement pfd is also too bright and the mechanic explains that this is the way they are coming from the vendor.