Dimmer reversion to auto

Tough debate - we had that argument for months internally.      We couldn't come up with a design that didn't piss off at least 1/3 of the users.

I'm personally a "User Control" kind of guy, a bunch are Photocell kinds of pilots and the rest are Dimming Bus Rheostat control kinds of pilot.  Within the Dimming Bus user group, we had all options passionately argued for. 

I may enhance the PG with a new Tip and Technique to make this current PG snippet stand out more and focus more on your specific scenario:

Loss of Display

Failure Indication:

The first indication that an IFD has experienced a loss of the display (LCD) is the appearance of a black display but the bezel backlighting is still present. Assuming the cockpit dimming control/rheostat hasn’t been activated to the dimmest setting and the display has actually failed, the easiest indication that just the display has failed is a continued backlighting of the BRT/DIM rocker key on the bezel and possibly some other bezel keys.

Functionality Lost:

All the basic functionality is intact (e.g. VHF com and nav radios, FMS navigation and deviation output, etc.) but is not visible.

Recommended Pilot Actions:

·         Check the cockpit dimming control/rheostat to ensure it is not in the “night” position;

·         Use other cockpit displays (e.g. CDI, HSI, etc) for crosschecking deviation and position;

Have you seen this thread?  It includes a common operational issue folks are having, a suggested technique, and a description of an upcoming software change:

AviJake wrote:  Failure Indication: The first indication that an IFD has experienced a loss of the display (LCD) is the appearance of a black display but the bezel backlighting is still present. Assuming the cockpit dimming control/rheostat hasn’t been activated to the dimmest setting and the display has actually failed, the easiest indication that just the display has failed is a continued backlighting of the BRT/DIM rocker key on the bezel and possibly some other bezel keys.

And what a good idea it was (the bright/dimmer rocker switch.....)

While the rocker switch would have been very nice, an alternative which could still be implemented would be an easily accessible control that does not require going to the setup page to tweak the brightness up or down. It would not change the settings, but would allow fine tuning to ambient conditions. Perhaps the top LSK could be used to put one of the lower right knobs in brightness adjust mode. The offset set by the control would be applied to the brightness called for by the IFD settings until the unit was powered down, at which time the offset would be revert to zero.