Why do they do this? Is it a power-surge issue? Is it to give all power to equipment that needs it? Just curious. It is a 'safety procedure' as they call it.
And why no iPod for take-off, approach and landing?
Just curious...
[FONT=ARIAL,]The lights are supposed to be dim, as so you can see, however, they must be dim so that in the event of an emergancy, your eyes can adjust quicker to the outside darkness and to reduce the chance or being 'light blind', try entering a pitch black room from a normal light room and you'll be unable to see anything for a while, this is reason they dim the lights, to reduce the time this happpens Source: http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/177540/[/FONT]
The theory is that in the unlikely event of an evacuation being required during the hours of darkness then it stops passengers being temporarily blinded by the rapid move from very bright aircraft interior to the darkness outside (though of course you could argue that the roaring inferno from the jet fuel might brighten it up outside a bit too )
For the ipods is so you can hear the PA system - similarly in case of evacuation or whatever being required you need to be able to hear it and not your music !