Cubdriver

Here's some more things to think about if you really want do this.

• Ground reference maneuvers require daylight for best results.
• A student who cannot land the plane in day gets worse at night.
• Crosswind skills get hard to teach with less visual data coming in. Most students cannot line up with the centerline to begin with, it gets worse with no centerline.
• While it could be said that crosswind skills at night matter less because there is less wind, it is a disservice to students not putting them in crosswinds during the day so they can learn more. Also, night wind events can be pretty severe when wind shear due to inversion occurs.
• Inside of the airplane can be hard to see at night for dual instruction purposes.
• It is best to give the students a day intro to the pilotage cues they will see when they do their day cross countries.
• Trainers are some of the least reliable aircraft around, an off airport landing at night is really dangerous. Why put a new pilot through the possibility.

If you have a student who really wants some solo night flight solo, as the earlier poster said, confine it to the airport pattern. As far as dual instruction is concerned air work at night or above a cloud deck is pretty feasible.