Large airports have fancy lighting schemes and are pretty obvious in good weather. Small airports or bad weather at night are a different story - I would not f

Large airports have fancy lighting schemes and are pretty obvious in good weather. Small airports or bad weather at night are a different story - I would not fly into a new airport the first time in those conditions. Think 10x - 100x the risk. Binoculars might be ok for the non-flying pilot to use, as long as he doesn't drop them on the floor and bind any rudder pedals.