An A319 first officer reported a pfd was so bright on a night flight that it was a safety issue and ...

Narrative:

On flight as night fell the first officer's pfd became too bright. Could not dim it anymore and it was a great hindrance to flight; and unsafe. It made it very difficult for me to fly and then our FMGC 2 failed and I didn't have much too see anyway. I wrote up the pfd as being too bright and that it checks ok on the ground with all the ramp lights shining in the cockpit; but up in the dark night sky and on approach in clouds it is way too bright. The mechanic apparently did not believe my write up and ran some tests and said it checks ok with no history. He ran diagnostic tests. I have been told by several mechanics that they don't test the pfd for brightness at all; so how can he tell it checks ok and overrides a pilot who just said it doesn't? This is a serious problem with our screens and mechanics cannot tell if it is too bright in the chocks. They need to develop a legitimate way to check the brightness; for example; you can turn it all the way down in the chocks. That is about what you need to see. I am very disappointed in our unsafe maintenance methods I'm seeing lately. I would like someone to contact me about this and I'm about to contact the FAA on my own about this.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An A319 First Officer reported a PFD was so bright on a night flight that it was a safety issue and could not be dimmed. Maintenance would not address the PFD brightness because they have no method of testing it.

Narrative: On flight as night fell the First Officer's PFD became too bright. Could not dim it anymore and it was a great hindrance to flight; and unsafe. It made it very difficult for me to fly and then our FMGC 2 failed and I didn't have much too see anyway. I wrote up the PFD as being too bright and that it checks OK on the ground with all the ramp lights shining in the cockpit; but up in the dark night sky and on approach in clouds it is way too bright. The mechanic apparently did not believe my write up and ran some tests and said it checks OK with no history. He ran diagnostic tests. I have been told by several mechanics that they don't test the PFD for brightness at all; so how can he tell it checks OK and overrides a pilot who just said it doesn't? This is a serious problem with our screens and mechanics cannot tell if it is too bright in the chocks. They need to develop a legitimate way to check the brightness; for example; you can turn it all the way down in the chocks. That is about what you need to see. I am very disappointed in our unsafe maintenance methods I'm seeing lately. I would like someone to contact me about this and I'm about to contact the FAA on my own about this.

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	951017
Time
Date	201105
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	A319
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Cruise
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	PFD
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Flying
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 240 Flight Crew Total 8500 Flight Crew Type 1400
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Deviation - Procedural Maintenance Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Inflight Event / Encounter Other / Unknown

An A319 first officer reported a pfd was so bright on a night flight that it was a safety issue and could not be dimmed. Maintenance would not address the pfd brightness because they have no method of testing it.