The CFI was new to the craft. He told the chief that the learner’s medical certificate had the limitation “night flying prohibited” printed on it. The CFI interpreted this to mean the learner was not allowed to fly after dark, and he didn’t want to risk his certificate by flying with the learner after sundown.

The learner had a color vision challenge, and the aviation medical examiner added the limitation to his medical certificate to reflect this. The learner said it was his understanding that his color vision might make night flight challenging, which was why he couldn’t be the pilot in command (PIC) at night, but he was still required to do the training, not only to satisfy the requirements for the certificate, but also to prepare him just in case he was caught out after dark. He was correct.

The training could take place because the instructor is PIC on dual instructional flights. The task became how to provide the best instruction for this particular learner while meeting the requirements.

Training for Night Flight

Training for night flight usually begins with a review of the challenges, such as reduced visual acuity, reduced depth perception, inability to see clouds, and understanding the required lighting for both outside and inside the cockpit.

Learners know they will need a flashlight for the lesson. I recommend one with a white light for doing the preflight inspection if it is after dark and one with a colored lens—red, blue, green or amber—for in the cockpit. I remind them the light on their smartphone won’t work in the cockpit because it is white light that destroys your night vision for 30 minutes (or more) after exposure.

• READ MORE: Scenarios for Training

When Does Night Begin?

FAR 1.1 defines night as the “time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the Air Almanac, converted to local time.”

Note the time of sunset locally because nav lights are required between sunset and sunrise, and we can start logging night experience one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise—used for night currency and carrying passengers. One popular way to ease the learner into the world of night flight is to take off just before sunset, so they can watch how the scenery changes and their eyes adjust.

The color-challenged learner found it very useful to note the roads adjacent to the local airports that helped him spot the rotating beacons and then the runways. The learner noted that he was glad to have the training “just in case,” but he planned to take care to make sure he was back on the ground an hour before sunset.

Three Hours of Instrument Training

The three hours of flight by reference to instruments only is another one of those ”just-in-case” requirements for private pilots. Yet there are those learners who balk at this training, saying they will only fly on good weather days, therefore, they don’t need it. Famous last words. The accident reports at NTSB.gov are filled with VFR into IMC situations. I bet those pilots didn’t intend to fly into bad weather—but it happened.

The three hours under the view-limiting device should be done gradually, as instrument flying can be very mentally fatiguing—especially at first. The concept of scan, cross-check, and instrument interpretation is best introduced in bite-sized chunks. I suggest not more than 10 minutes of hood time during the flight when it is introduced, as the learners grasp the use of the attitude indicator, heading indicator, altimeter, etc. Each subsequent flight will include more hood time focusing on climbs, turns, descents, and basic navigation. It’s very easy to fly visually, then put the learner under the hood for a few minutes, then return to visual flight. 

Keep in mind that IMC doesn’t just come from clouds. One summer there was a sudden onset of a smoke event caused by a wildfire in Seattle. Although the reported weather at the airport was VFR, a savvy flight instructor obtained an IFR clearance and taught a private pilot candidate to fly the RNAV into the home airport under the hood because, frankly, although the AWOS was reporting 4 to 6 miles from the air, it was “deceptively crappy” as my former chief used to say.

Often experiences like this lead to the learner pursuing an instrument rating, keeping in mind the most important skill for a noninstrument-rated pilot to have is the ability to read a weather report and correctly interpret the information.

The post Three Hours of Just-in-Case Training Is Required appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Thrilled with the chance to go flying again, I found my flight gear in the basement, grabbed my aviation headset, kissed my wife and kids good night, and hurried off to the airport to meet my friend.

As I would be a front-seat passenger on the flight, I intended to observe the goings-on and effectively get a reintroduction to the world of GA that I had missed over the last few years. From previous articles, you may recall that I am a vocal proponent for the use of home flight simulation, a believer that the benefits of a modest setup can engage the user in aviation decision-making, learning, and fun. However, having not flown a real-world flight in four years, it felt like sufficient time had passed where I could be reminded and maybe surprised about some facets of the experience I had forgotten.

• READ MORE: To Providence or Bust, in Simulated Flight

Driving to the Airport

I did not expect to enjoy it, but the drive to the airport provided some post-workday decompression and reflection time. I’d be joining my friend at Plymouth Municipal Airport (KPYM), located 30 miles south of Boston on Massachusetts’ southeastern coast. Usually, the 90-plus-minute drive from my home to the airport would be arduous and traffic-filled, but the relatively late departure gave me an unusually stress-free drive. It felt great to have my flight gear on the seat next to me again, a little stiff and dusty from lack of use, but ready to go.

I used some of the windshield time to think ahead about where I could try and be a helpful addition to the flight. Pulling off the highway to stop for fuel, I opened ForeFlight to check the weather. Clicking on the “Imagery” tab, I reviewed the “CONUS Weather” section and then read the Boston and New York area TAFs and METARs.

Although my friend had already reviewed the weather, it helped to get my head back in the game. Before arriving at the airport, I took some time to recall some favorite flights when I was PIC, flying friends and family on short flights around New England. Flipping through those memories in my logbook, I realized this would be my first flight since my grandfather passed back in December 2020.

As was our tradition in his final years, I would write him a complete account of every flight so he could enjoy it vicariously. It was a small token of my appreciation for the gift of heavily subsidized flight training he and my grandmother had provided me when I was in high school. I am fortunate he lived a long life in which he shared flying memories, such as taking the F4U Corsair on training flights in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

Arriving at the airport, I had a few minutes to myself after parking at the hangar. Walking out to the airport fence, just as the sun sunk below the tree line, I reached into my jacket pocket to find a special artifact. I closed my hand around my grandfather’s pair of U.S. Navy wings he gave me for safekeeping. I looked out over the quiet evening of airplanes at rest in their tiedowns, a little bit of haze on the horizon lit up the sky in orange and dark pink. It was calm and peaceful, and I had forgotten how moving this scene could be at golden hour. In a few minutes, I would be on the fun side of the fence, getting to fly with a good friend in a gorgeous airplane on a near-perfect VFR evening.

The Preflight

Within a few minutes, my friend arrived, and I was trailing him through the ritual of the preflight and being reminded of how much I used to enjoy the process. Per the checklist, we started at the back of the leftwing, examining the aileron, flaps, and the assorted hardware. As we worked our way through the checklist to the right wing, I placed my hand on the leading edge and realized how much I missed the tactile connection with the airplane prior to flying it. The aircraft in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and X-Plane 12 are faithfully digital replicas, down to the finest visual details, but there was joy again in physically prepping the machine that would soon take us aloft. Following my friend, I contorted myself below the wing. Assuming a push-up position next to the right tire, he showed me how to check the brake condition and then used the fuel strainer to sump the fuel. Then, we checked the oil, engine cowl, propeller, and the rest of the checklist items.

Satisfied the aircraft was ready to fly, my friend offered me the left seat for the evening. Soon we were taxiing ahead into the calm darkness of the night. No other aircraft were moving at KPYM and the unicom frequency was quiet, save for our radio calls.

Takeoff was exciting. The vibration of the engine at full throttle and acceleration into the climb were physical sensations I definitely missed from my previous years of flight simulation. To address this, I recently added an HF8 Haptic Gaming Pad by Next Level Racing to my home flight sim. The pad sits on top of your flight sim seat and is used across the gaming and simulation world to bring additional sensation to your in-sim experience. Using tunable vibrations within eight different locations on the pad, it cleverly alerts the user to physical changes occurring to the airplane in different phases of flight.

For example, flying my Cape Air-liveried Beechcraft 58 Baron in MSFS2020, there is a satisfying thump felt in the seat pad when the landing gear fully retracts into the fuselage and the doors close. It reminded me of when the gear doors closed in the Piper Arrow I flew a few years ago. The pad also activates when the flaps are lowered into the slipstream and when the aircraft engines are idling below 1,000 rpm. Also, the pad vibrates when rapid pitch changes occur, alerting you to the buildup of G-forces. Without a haptic pad, the dynamic changes to the airplane during flight could only be experienced visually or audibly, leaving out the rest of the body.

Night VFR

Back in the real world, we were cruising through night VFR conditions that couldn’t have been much better. The first major landmark below us was the yellow-lighted outline of the Newport Bridge in Rhode Island, pointing like an arrow due west toward the Connecticut coastline. From the air, we followed the glowing path of vehicle headlights traveling on Interstate Highway 95 South. The lights from cars, neighborhoods, and nearby towns flowed forward, ahead of the airplane, all the way to Manhattan, just barely visible on the horizon. We crossed over Westerly, and my friend confirmed that a small patch of lights off the left wing was Montauk on the most easterly tip of Long Island. Between us and that thin sliver of land were the waters of Long Island Sound, which seemed to reflect almost no light and were the deepest black, exactly like the night sky above. Looking beyond Montauk, the only lights were a few stars and distant airliners making their way to and from the New York City airspace.

Next, we flew over the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and were soon turning back toward KPYM, picking up Boston Approach on com 1 and passing over the Class Charlie airspace of nearby Providence, Rhode Island (KPVD). Twelve miles west of KPYM, we started looking for the airport, leaning forward in our belts and peering out into the murky darkness ahead. With only a crescent moon above us, there was just enough haze to make it slightly challenging to find the horizon. The Cirrus SR20’s MFD indicated exactly where the airport should be, so my friend dialed up the correct frequency, hit the push-to-talk switch seven times, and a dazzling blue jewel, made up of hundreds of individual airport lights, burst from the darkness, giving shape to the airport a few miles ahead. Looking out over the nose, I watched how the perspective of the runway changed as we descended to the touchdown point.

Comparing both the real-world landing with some recent night landings from the left seat in my sim, I was very impressed by MSFS2020’s faithful digital representation of that critical phase of flight. On your own home simulator, you can easily adjust and tune your field of view to work best for your specific monitor and hardware setup. A majority of the work can be done through simple adjustments of the slider bars. Tuning the field-of-view and camera settings in your simis time well spent since being able to look around your virtual cockpit easily is critical to improving immersion and having an enjoyable experience.

After landing, we taxied back, shut down, and began the postflight activities of putting the aircraft back in the hangar for the evening. I was grateful for my friend’s invitation to join him and the subsequent reintroduction to GA and night VFR flying. All of my flight sim experiences at home are solo, except for the live communication with volunteer controllers, and a highlight of this flight was getting to catch up with my friend in person. It was all the more special knowing his departure to airline training would be coming this summer, making opportunities to fly together more scarce. After four years away from GA, I realized how much of the flight experience I had missed, both the familiar and unexpected. But being back at the airport, I felt like I was home again—and it felt great.

Hardware Recommendations

Gaming PC: This article was written during my switchover to a new Doghouse Systems gaming PC. John Pryor, Doghouse Systems owner and founder, specifically built the PC to tackle the graphic demands of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, significantly shortening the load time and allowing its highest graphics settings to be utilized. I have been busy tuning the graphics and switching over the flight controls and avionics. Having been an X-Plane user since 2015, I am learning the finer points of MSFS2020. If you’re in the market for a home flight simulator, look at Doghouse Systems custom-built gaming PCs.

HF8 Haptic Gaming Pad: I am really enjoying the recent addition of this upgrade to my flight sim seat. After installing the driver required to make it run with MSFS2020, I plan to use it on every flight. Even a Class D level simulator can’t replace the physical sensations of flying, but that isn’t the point of the pad. When I add new hardware to my sim, I do so hoping it will provide incremental improvements in the form of additional fun, greater immersion, or a new challenge—and the sensor pad checks those boxes.

This article first appeared in the August 2023/Issue 940 print edition of FLYING.

The post A Midsummer Night’s Flight appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Answer: Not necessarily. Red-green color vision deficiency—a fancy term for colorblindness—is also known as deuteranomaly and is the most common form of the condition. Because aviation is filled with color-coded information—including light gun signals, arcs on the airspeed indicator, lights in the cockpit, presentation on glass cockpit instruments, airport signs, lights and symbology on sectionals—color vision is important, especially at night when colored lights are used to identify aircraft in flight and determine its direction relative to you and locate airports by spotting the rotating beacon.

• READ MORE: FAA Updates its Policy for Special Medical Flight Tests

As a private pilot, you will be required to obtain a medical certificate that includes color vision testing using a pseudoisochromatic color plate test. It’s a series of several dots of a specific color arranged to form a number while other dots of a different color surround them. People with color perception challenges may have difficulty distinguishing the numbers. If you fail this test because of red-green colorblindness, you will still be able to obtain a medical certificate, but there will be a limitation preventing you from flying at night. The FAA defines this restriction as “no night flying or color signal control.” You will still be able to fly during the day. The night limitation exists because  land airports are identified by rotating green and white beacons at night.

The post Can a Pilot Be Colorblind? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Recognizing that the cloak of night influences the outcome of accidents, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Air Safety Institute (ASI) is offering new analysis of night flight accidents. The purpose  is to identify the causal factors in accidents that occur at night and to help pilots develop strategies to mitigate these factors. The report looks at accidents that happened during night flying from 2017 to 2021. For the purpose of the report, “night is defined as beginning at dusk and ending right before dawn.”

The FAR/AIM goes into more detail. In Part 1 definitions, night is defined as the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight. Morning civil twilight begins when the geometric center of the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon and ends at sunrise. Evening civil twilight begins at sunset and ends when the geometric center of the sun reaches 6 degrees below the horizon.

Most pilots learn the Part 61 definition of night, which refers to one hour after sunset and ending one hour before sunrise. Between those hours no person may act as pilot in command (PIC) of an aircraft carrying passengers unless within the preceding 90 days that person has made at least three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop during that night period.

Part of the challenge with night flight, according to ASI, is that many pilots focus on regaining currency for night flight with three takeoffs and landings, but they do not allow sufficient time to gain proficiency.

Causal Factors of Night Accidents

According to the report, the top four accident causal factors are: loss of control in flight, engine and propeller failure, fuel exhaustion or fuel mismanagement, and loss of control on the ground accidents.

Loss of control often results from a pilot experiencing spatial disorientation and putting the aircraft into an unusual attitude in an attempt to “fix” the issue.

Spatial disorientation is defined as the inability of a person to determine their body position, motion, and altitude relative to the earth of their surroundings. During the day and in visual flight rules, the pilot determines orientation by looking out the windscreen at the horizon.

At night the horizon can be difficult to discern, and often there are visual illusions. For example, the Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge warns pilots that a line of house lights on rising terrain can be mistaken for stars in the sky. If the pilot mistakes the line of lights for the horizon, it can make them think the airplane is in a steep bank when actually it is straight and level. Experiencing this loss of situational awareness, the pilot attempts to correct the situation, but in reality they have put the aircraft in an unusual attitude resulting in a loss of control.

Moonless nights, marginal VFR, and IFR conditions at night can add to the challenge of maintaining situational awareness. In addition, the lack of illumination to see terrain and known ground landmarks can further erode a pilot’s situational awareness.

“Night flying introduces challenges that are reflected in the data,” said Robert Geske, ASI manager of aviation safety analysis. “More than one-quarter of fatal night flying accidents occurred because of spatial disorientation, a condition that can bring about loss of control in flight—the leading cause of all night flying accidents.”

Accidentally Out After Dark

A study of accident reports compiled by the National Transportation Safety Board notes that often the pilot involved in an accident may have been night current but not night flight proficient.

It is not uncommon for pilots to satisfy the night requirement for a certificate or rating then never or very rarely fly at night again. Instead, they find themselves “caught out” at night when there have been delays during the day.

Personal flights dominated fatal and non-fatal accidents. The ASI suggests the way to mitigate this is for pilots “to routinely seek instruction during night flights with an emphasis on en route, climb, and approach phases to help reduce accidents.”

The report noted the majority of the accidents took place during the en route portion of the flight when a loss of situational awareness resulted in a loss of control resulting in a stall-spin accident.

“Training that emphasizes low-speed awareness and stall recognition and prevention should reduce these deadly accidents,” the report stated.

According to the report, between 2017 and 2021 there were 464 fixed-wing general aviation (GA) accidents with 150 ending in a fatality. Of that, accidents taking place at night accounted for 7 percent of the total. “However, fatal night accidents account for 16 percent of fatal GA accidents,” highlighting the risks associated with night operations, AOPA said.

Accidents taking place in instrument meteorological conditions were the deadliest, as more than 67 percent of those resulted in fatalities, the report said. Darkness can also make it more difficult to determine issues that can lead to an accident. For example, a pilot might not notice smoke in the darkness or that the wrong color of aviation fuel is being added to their aircraft.

Equipment for Night Flight

Proper pilot equipment for night flight and cockpit organization are key. The pilot should have the cockpit set up before engine start. Reaching into the darkness of the backseat for something stowed in a flight bag can prove dicey.

It is  important for the pilot to have an appropriate flashlight. While the flashlights app on a smartphone might be useful for the preflight inspection, it will not work in the cockpit, and white light destroys night vision. Instead, the pilot should have a flashlight with a colored lens such as red, green, or amber. These hues allow a pilot to maintain their night vision in the cockpit.

ASI suggests pilots add night proficiency training to their regular flying and, under the watchful eye of a CFI, perform basic maneuvers such as climbs, turns, descents, slow flight, and stalls in addition to takeoffs and landings.

The post Night Flight Challenges Reflected in Data, Says Air Safety Institute appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

For a few years I have annoyed my wife with the notion of purchasing a car to match my birth year. The idea was unrealistic. The logistics of storage and maintenance intermingle with the trepidation that such an automobile could only be seen and not touched. After my exposure to the classic car world through my JetBlue captain friend, Mike Strauss, I realized that some toys can be classified as “drivers.” Drivers still have value, but can also be enjoyed beyond the boundaries of a car show on a blue-sky Sunday in June.

With much supervision from Mike and another mutual friend, Kage Barton, a retired Continental/United captain, I was convinced to pull the trigger on my first classic car. The purchase put a grin on my face. As expected, my wife managed a hesitant smile, gracefully acknowledging the acquisition. Interestingly enough, the seller was a spry 90-year-old who had been a Navy aviation electronics technician during the Korean War. He admired pilots, even though we attempted to convince him that he should probably raise his standards. Through him, I soon had the honorable responsibility of becoming the next “custodian” for a 1957 Chrysler New Yorker.

Now in the world of classic cars, I was invited to appropriate events, one of them being the world-famous Mecum auction. There, toys in the form of cars, boats, motorcycles, and engines are displayed for bidding in such utterly ridiculous quantities—from the paint-challenged to the ostentatious—that it boggles the mind. For this year, the auction venues were at 13 locations across the U.S., inclusive of live streaming and a regular TV show. In January, one show took place in Kissimmee, Florida, which presented the opportunity for a 35-minute flight in my classic 50-year-old airplane.

A Friendly Race to Kissimmee

For those who have been following my tale of aircraft ownership woe, the Arrow returned to operational status in December after its six-month retreat in the lonely back corner of a maintenance hangar. An AMOC (alternative method of compliance) was finally granted following the Arrow’s failing an eddy current inspection last year—the result of minor abrasions in the two bolt holes of the right-wing spar cap that were addressed by an airworthiness directive instituted as a result of an accident in 2018. The AMOC simply allowed for bolt holes that were only thousandths of an inch wider in diameter than Piper’s specs. It’s probably the safest Arrow wing in the world now.

With Mike departing in his Beechcraft Bonanza from Ormond Beach, Florida (KOMN), and me departing Flagler Beach (KFIN) in the Arrow, we coordinated a synchronous arrival into Kissimmee (KISM). My non-aviation passenger, Ken Bryan, is a local friend and classic car aficionado. I briefed Ken airline-style—and apologized in advance for any lapse in my piloting skills—assigning him the task of cockpit door opener in the event of a takeoff emergency. Aside from gusty winds, it was a blue-sky morning.

Noting that the magenta line took us directly over DeLand airport (KDED) and its associated parachuting operation, I altered the heading to the west so as to avoid a possible encounter with a colorful nylon canopy. My contact with Daytona Beach Approach for flight following revealed a problem with Orlando ATC. They were short-staffed, probably an Omicron-related issue, so no flight following through Class B airspace—an operation the controllers normally accommodated.

Utilizing my new flight-deck assistant, ForeFlight, I began the finger tap dance of determining airspace altitudes and the best frequency for monitoring Orlando Approach. A course to the west of the Class B seemed the best option. Unfortunately, it added an extra 10 minutes to the trek, but Ken was enjoying the scenery anyhow. Disney World, with its permanent TFR, was the next potential airspace violation to avoid. I would find out later that Mike had filed IFR in the Bonanza—with its advantage of ATC routing—so his only complicated task was to find Kissimmee.

We landed with minimal issues other than a healthy crosswind. To Mike’s chagrin, we arrived ahead of him. Fortunately, George Vernon, a former American Airlines colleague and retiree was Mike’s passenger. George bore witness to the winner of our undeclared air race. I don’t remember working that hard on my JFK-to-London flights, but then we didn’t have that kind of fun.

• READ MORE from Les Abend

Although the Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee was the venue for the auction, you might consider it one of the world’s most expansive automobile museums. The only difference was that the museum pieces were all for sale. In seven hours we only viewed half of the cars.

A Classic Car ‘Encyclopedia’

Mike is a human car encyclopedia, aiding our self-guided walking tour. He has an uncanny ability to procure the most obscure details from body style to the type of carburetor installed. I thought he was just making stuff up, but so far he’s only been wrong twice despite my myriad of questions. He was chastised appropriately for being incorrect.

Performed with the melodic cadence of professional auctioneers, the auction itself was an incredibly efficient process. Most cars rolled onto the bidding stage were there for an average of two minutes. A cherry-red 1959 Cadillac convertible that sold for $155,000 might have taken another minute longer after a bidding war erupted. Although we weren’t seated in the bidding area, I kept my hands in my pockets.

Because we stayed till the end, our flight home was into a night sky. Nighttime flying in a single-engine airplane is not my regular practice—having been spoiled with the luxury of a sophisticated jet and a competent copilot—but I found the courage nonetheless. Without assistance from Signature personnel, having paid the “facility fee” that had literally increased overnight to $50, we walked to our airplanes located at a dark, remote area of the ramp. We removed chocks and orange hazard cones on our own respective walkarounds.

This time with the support of an IFR flight plan, Ken and I launched skyward. We were dazzled by the lights below and a display of fireworks from Epcot. Despite a rheostat failure that didn’t allow for dimming the panel lights, I managed to find the runway back home, albeit with a touchdown that was a little firmer than desired.

It was a great classic car and a great classic airplane day. And no, there’s not a chance that I will die with the most toys.

This article was first published in the Q2 2022 edition of FLYING Magazine.

The post When Classic Airplanes and Classic Cars Come Together appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Realistically, there should be no reason for us to be afraid of flying at night, but I can see how the lack of usual visual cues can affect a number of pilots. Fortunately, I was able to adjust, loved it even, so that when I was reassigned a day shift later, I really missed it.

With the recent time change, we are that time of year again when the days are shorter, and many pilots who haven’t flown at night for a long time, might find themselves chasing sunsets to get home. Here are some things to consider:

Pilot: Are you ready?

While the time adjustment changes the sunrise/sunset schedule, unfortunately, your personal itinerary might not change. All of a sudden, you might find yourself in darkness yelling “Clear prop!” and trying to decipher if that light in the distance is a lighthouse or a rotating beacon.

You certainly don’t want to be in this position without a bit of planning, especially if you’re flying solo.

But you don’t have to make your first night flight in a long time feel like it’s your first night flight in a long time. If you have the means to do it, ease yourself in by doing a series of flights days before that begin as the day closes. That way, you get used to the lower visibility without the shock of starting out in pitch dark. For once, go gentle into the night. That’ll make it easier to be ready for a later trip in terms of recency, currency, and even psyche.

Aircraft

Given that the lack of light causes the most anxiety for pilots, don’t add to it. Ensure that your aircraft is sufficiently equipped for your night flight. Recall that there are different lighting requirements for day and night flights, and a bad time to find out that you don’t have a working landing light, for example, would be when you’re deciding if you should flare to land now or not. 

Don’t limit this consideration to lights. Do you have the correct navigation and communication instruments? Are you meeting the night fuel requirements? Can you operate at an altitude optimal for the trip? Don’t aim to be minimally compliant here. If you’re flying solo, having things that can augment your decision making is worth every penny.

• Love your flight instructor? Tell Us About Them!

Another thing I would discuss with my students is their emergency contingency plans and how they would specifically deal with a situation. In a training environment, a student’s mind is already primed with answers, and they can more easily come up with them. However, if you are an independent operator, can you say the same for yourself?

It’s not that things are more likely to go wrong at night. Instead, we need to pay attention to our state of readiness—and how unforgiving each decision can be when you don’t have the same elements to help you that you would in the daytime. If you make a habit to review abnormal and emergency checklists, you’re less likely to be startled by mechanical inconveniences, even if you have to make a forced landing as a worst case scenario. 

Simply put, knowing your airplane is one of the ultimate preparations you can make for flying at night.

enVironment

Nighttime weather might be the ultimate decision driver, and aside from zigzagging through thunderstorms like I had to when instructing in Florida, pilots also have to deal with two other extremes: cold, and instrument meteorological conditions. The good extreme is a full-moon night, when the sky is brighter than New Year’s Eve, and there are hardly any clouds. But that’s a lottery that escapes most of us. So, we have to consider other conditions that are more likely.

• MORE IN TRAINING: Learn to Fly | Pilot Proficiency

Remember to bring a coat. As we enter the winter season and temperatures go from warm to really cold, don’t find yourself unfocused because you didn’t plan for it. 

Another challenge with cold weather? Frost and icing—there’s a higher potential for them, so you need to steer clear, if possible. Even for airplanes equipped with icing prevention and de-icing systems, having to traverse such inclement weather increases pilot workload. I would be hard-pressed to think of a trip that is a must-go if you have to put yourself in those conditions.

Another consideration that pilots sometimes take for granted is route planning. While GPS direct is the optimal way to travel, consider flying as close as possible to populated areas. If the trip includes flying over water or unpopulated areas with the chance of losing your visual reference to the horizon, be prepared to fly IFR.

External Pressures

Alas, the final consideration is possibly the biggest factor affecting the safe outcome for a night flight. 

I know how it is. You really don’t want to go home. On a good day, if the skies are clear, even if you’ve been flying all day—especially after required fuel stops—it’s enticing to complete that final leg and skip the hotel bill. Perhaps you’ve flown the route many times before. On top of that, you promised someone to be somewhere at some point. 

I’ve been there before, and not getting home as planned is a drag. Right? 

If you haven’t flown at night for a long time, it’s tempting to want to play hero and rise to the occasion, but your past performance is no guarantee of the success you’ll need in that moment, especially if you lack recency of experience, currency in the airplane, or you’re just plain tired. 

External pressures aren’t the exception in this industry—they are the rule. No trip is an absolute go. 

Considering everything mentioned above, if you aren’t ready for a night trip, your ultimate hedge is to try another day.

The post Things a CFI Wants You to Know: Respect the Night appeared first on FLYING Magazine.