Night flying
 

tomorrow its my first time to go do some night flying. Local airport, noting fancy do some PPL manuevers and landings.

Do you guys, with an experience, have any tips/suggestions for my flight so i can make it as easy as possible? Heard it was quite different from day :)

Go outside for about 30 mins before you get in the plane and let your eyes adjust to the low light. Start out with your cockpit lights in the plane as low as you can stand it and then constantly lower them more as your eyes adjust.

For the landing, you have to set the airplane up in the flare attitude and then wait for it to land itself...you can't judge the touchdown quite as precisely as daytime.

Also, if the landings go well, ask your CFI to let you practice some lights out LDG's with the landing lights off. Since GA landing light bulbs last only about 25 hours, you WILL, for sure, have them burn out eventually necessitating a lights-out landing. It's better to do your first one with a cfi than all by yourself as a low-time private pilot.


Have Fun!

Yah landing with out lights needs to be practiced.

Also - a red top from a coke bottle fits on a pocket mag light perfect and is a great night red light...

Please tell us that you know what the instruments are telling you before you get out in a black hole....

When I was a young pilot landing at country airports with no lights on the xwnd and dwn wnd - I would tell myself - this is as real as it gets - becuase I could not hit P in Flight Sim - Have Fun - Fly Safe :)

Oh yea, from my previous experienses i can say that I know what the instruments are telling me.

Good point on no landing light...

and tip for red coke bottle! :)

Those are kind of advices i'm looking for. You guys rock

Tip: night vision is overrated. Don't sacrifice misreading a chart for it. Applies more to IFR flight in general but nonetheless. Have fun, listen to your CFI, and relax. It will take a few flights before you feel comfortable.

Red coke bottle cap works well, but you have to buy a coke which costs lots of money. You can also just got to a hardware store and take a cap off a WD-40 can. That's free, and I wouldn't consider it stealing...

I don't drink coke - so I just get them out of the trash ;)

A friend cheaper than me - stole his old ladies finger nail polish and paints bulbs with it ;)

I am far from expierenced but my advice is be aware of the various illusions that runway lights can cause at night! Use your peripheral vision to judge how far you are from the runway when flaring for landing. The first couple of flights I always flared to high with resulted in quite a sink rate and a hard landing. Also use your alimeter to your advantage and be siuationally aware of field elevation at unfamiliar fields. Good luck you will have a great time!

Hey another tip that also works on floats on glassy water as well as night...

Set the aircraft up for 200' descent on the VSI and just try and not let it land.

Night flying is cool but if it ever gets "quiet" you need to have it clear in your mind on do I go for the road and wires - or dark spots which might be water... I live in Fla. Alligators are a factor in that thought...

I tend to fly high at night SEL and always flight following....

hit an alligator on a runway at night time... :eek:

thats a bit too much for me

You will do one of two things:

1) Flare way too high
2) Don't flare at all and bounce.

It will take some time getting used to depth perception at night

I've noticed with my Night landings that my landings at day improved a lot. But that didn't happen until a few months ago towards the end of the training for my commercial. Watch out for the clouds as well, harder to see at night. you can also buy one of those olive drab L-shaped flash lights from a surplus store. they have many different colored (coloured in the UK) lenses and are pretty inexpensive. Have spare batteries, and an extra flashlight. can't tell you how many times I misplaced my primary light and had to use my spare. Good luck, you'll : enjoy it, and probably say: "I can't wait till I start getting paid to do this." My dad told me to wait till I have to do a night approach in bad WX. Enjoy!

If you're at a towered airport, ask them to flash some light gun signals at you if they're not too busy. Controllers will be more than happy to oblige as they need to check the function of the light from time to time. :)

Damn you, you stole what I was going to say. Night perception does take awhile to attain. Every single student I taught did one, or both rough landings within the first 5. It's easy to get distracted by "other" lights in the area, focus on what you are supposed to be looking at on landing. Looking down the runway and using that periphial vision of the lights, not what's actually in your landing light, will help you feel your way to the ground.

You're entering an awesome part of your training man. There is nothing more thrilling as a student to be soloing the plane for the first time at night even if you are just buzzing around the pattern. I prefer night flight over the day. Oh yeah be prepared to start doing your flare and then suddenly bounce you've landed.

Like everyone else said, it'll take you a few landings to really get the idea of judging your height and such. To restate important stuff, definitely get some experience with no lights. It'll happen eventually.

But to kinda add, and touch on what max briefly mentioned, study up on runway illusions. Night flying can really screw with you. Fly the same approach as you would during the daytime. If you have a VASI/PAPI, use it to your advantage...but don't fully rely on it because not all airports will have one.

Look through medical factors...such as autokinesis and how to scan for aircraft.

When you do your night cross countries, you'll realize your using your instruments, charts and VOR's (etc) much more because your landmarks/checkpoints will be different. Keep in mind you can't see as many objects as you can during the day. Towns can sometimes be good, if you live in the middle of no where. Following roads is nice if your not in a major city (we have I-81)...use good judgement when picking out your landmarks.

Take another glance at airport beacons and what their colors mean. Before you go to an unfamiliar field, glance again at the airport diagrams. Things look much different at night, and you'll find yourself utterly lost if you don't have an idea of what to expect.

Like someone mentioned, keep an eye out for clouds. They are much harder to spot at night. If you start seeing lights on the ground disappear, take action...your wingtip strobes will become nice and blinding if you start entering clouds too. Make sure to get a nice thorough weather briefing, and fly a bit higher if need be...especially if around terrain that isn't so emergency friendly. Try to have emergency landing locations in mind prior to departing. Know the terrain...if there's going to be lotsa mountains on your left, and open fields to your right...have a pre-emergency plan.

There's probably more I could add. I know I strayed into night cross country stuff, but you'll eventually need it anyway.

Have a blast with your night flying, and let us know how it all turns out. It's an absolute blast.

Jenn

thanks guys!!

did my flight last night (had to delay for a week..)

was doing pattern work at local airport KRNT (renton, wa). becomes uncontrolled at 9pm.

we took off around 8:30 did couple touch and goes with landing light and airport lights. did pretty well i think, my instructor was impressed. then he decided to do couple of landings with no landing light, side runway light. struggled the first couple landings, but got good flare on 3rd landings.

when airport became uncontrolled my instructor decided to shut down runway lights (5 flicks on the mic), and no landing light... now THAT was horrible :-D

i could not figure out where the runway was, and just decided to go with 50 feet to the right off VASI lights (landing on 15). i knew that the elevation is about 50 feet MSL, so i was trying to figure out how to land by altimeter, but it was waaaay more difficult than i imagined (especially on my very first landing). my body was freaking out too, feeling like I was turning, but turn coordinator showed that I was flying straight.

anyways. great tips guys! would have suffered that night with out all of these suggestions and tips!

I'm so glad that you enjoyed your experience!!! It's something you'll always remember...and you'll be glad you did all the light out approaches. Glad you saw first hand how your body reacts to flight when you can't see outside. It'll give you a great pre-lesson on trusting your instruments for when you get to your IFR training. The body is a complex 'machine' and illusions are just one of the many things we learn to deal with.

Again, glad you had fun. :)

I love night, and of course my old job, that's about all I ever flew. Until last week, I had more night hours that single-engine hours(around 1400). I've had to land w/ no lights at an airport, a mix of 1/2 the lights working, etc.... Landing w/o a slope isn't a big deal to me, because I'm used ot the perception of night, but I remember early on it did take a little while to get. Good luck on continuing your traning!!!

I did most of my IFR training during the night...it was great....nice smooth air...less traffic therefore higher availability to shoot IAP's...it was a good experience.

Something i always noted was(at least for me) that it always seemed like i was approaching at a lot faster speed than i was actually flying. Good to keep a close eye on that airspeed indicator:D