Discouraging flight last night

LoLPilot

LoLPilot

Line Up and Wait
Joined
Jun 30, 2018
Messages
626
Location
St. Louis, MO
Display Name
Display name:
LoLPilot
Went out last night to do some pattern work. I don't have a whole lot of night hours because I don't really like the idea of flying at night in a single, but I've been trying to get over that a bit. Last week I did some night work with an instructor and it went really well so I went up to do some solo patterns for practice last night. Long story short winds were stronger than the TAF forecasted, there was a little bit of a shear layer about 100 AGL that knocked me around a bit and I wound up behind the airplane. Landed, taxi'd back to the hangar with my tail firmly between my legs and went home. Feeling kind of disheartened about it. Any advice for nighttime or dealing with nighttime apprehension?
 
Bad flights happen, what can you say?

The advice would be to do a review of what happened, how it went a bit sideways and what you can do to prevent it next time.

When did you realize the winds were stronger than forecasted? Was it before you took off, or after? If after, perhaps a better preflight. Weather underground has a TON of personal weather stations (PWS) you can look for to see what actual ground winds are. If before, perhaps better respect next time they're stronger.

What did you do when you got behind the aircraft? Perhaps it might have been smarter to climb to a safe altitude, take some breaths, catch up to the aircraft, then proceed.

I dont see anything really that was caused by the night, except maybe your own dread of it. None of the factors you posted are unique to night flying.

My bottom line suggestion is to saddle up and get back on the horse. (For those who are literal minded, that would be to rent the plane again and go do some more night flying.)
 
I’ve had flights with more than 200 hrs that I scrapped because I didn’t like what I was dealing with. One time, requested stop and go for night currency, then called tower and told them that I just wanted clearance to land. I didn’t feel like fighting conditions tonight. No shame in that. Especially when you’re working on something new/unfamiliar, don’t complicate that by adding other factors (ie. Unpleasant winds) to the mix. Get on the ground safely, then come back another day.

As others have said. Practice something enough and it becomes comfortable. Remember the first time you drive a car (especially if it was manual transmission) and you had a hard time with it? Now imagine doing that in icy conditions and that is sort of like what you’re doing here.

I’d say don’t be discouraged. You made the determination that your life was more important than forcing a couple more landings. That is good aeronautical decision making. Take encouragement from that and work on night landings another day!
 
guest user said:
Bad flights happen, what can you say?

The advice would be to do a review of what happened, how it went a bit sideways and what you can do to prevent it next time.

When did you realize the winds were stronger than forecasted? Was it before you took off, or after? If after, perhaps a better preflight. Weather underground has a TON of personal weather stations (PWS) you can look for to see what actual ground winds are. If before, perhaps better respect next time they're stronger.

What did you do when you got behind the aircraft? Perhaps it might have been smarter to climb to a safe altitude, take some breaths, catch up to the aircraft, then proceed.

I dont see anything really that was caused by the night, except maybe your own dread of it. None of the factors you posted are unique to night flying.

My bottom line suggestion is to saddle up and get back on the horse. (For those who are literal minded, that would be to rent the plane again and go do some more night flying.)
Click to expand...

I got a TAF in the morning and it was saying about 10 knots straight down the runway. When I got to the airport I noticed a flag on a nearby business was blowing pretty well but when I got out of my car and walked to the hangar it felt pretty calm. Before I started up I got the ASOS on my handheld and the winds were a pretty direct crosswind but only 5 knots. I did notice taxiing out that the plane was wanting to weathervane a bit but nothing super serious. Takeoff was smooth but when I got about 100 AGL I got what felt like some pretty rough turbulence, to the point that maintaining coordination was tough. I flew through that and climbed up to pattern altitude and it smoothed out. When I turned to downwind I looked out the window to find the runway and noticed that during the turn I'd been blown close enough in that the runway looked like it was just over the main wheel (high wing). I put a crab angle in and tried to put some distance between me and the runway. After I got abeam the numbers you go out over some woods and fields and you get a black hole effect, so I estimated the time to extend downwind and turned base. That's kind of when things went pear-shaped. When I rolled out onto base leg I realized I was in the process of flying through the extended centerline so I called final and rolled it steep in, just as I hit the shear layer. Looked at the ASI just in time to see it bleeding off and I was like "do NOT stall the airplane," so pushed the nose over and gave it power. So my "turn to final" was a 270 degree turn and after I got below about 100 AGL I had to take all of the crosswind crab out as I got into the calmer winds near the surface. I was flustered by this point, carried a bunch of speed and floated what felt like a good thousand feet before touchdown. I will say touchdown was beautiful with no sideload and just a gentle squeak. If there WAS a bright spot that was it.

In retrospect when I realized on downwind that my pattern was boinked I should have departed to the practice area, climbed a bit to fly around and clear the cobwebs and then come back in for a straight in approach or re-enter the pattern. It was just me and one other guy out so I wasn't working with a lot of other traffic.

EDIT: I also should have definitely called a go-around rather than try to salvage that really gnarly turn to final. Pushing on with that was stpuid.
 
Most rookie pilots rapidly forget everything they learned about wind in their ground reference maneuvers. Go re-read about the rectangular course and apply that to some patterns ASAP.
 
P
LoLPilot said:
I got a TAF in the morning and it was saying about 10 knots straight down the runway. When I got to the airport I noticed a flag on a nearby business was blowing pretty well but when I got out of my car and walked to the hangar it felt pretty calm. Before I started up I got the ASOS on my handheld and the winds were a pretty direct crosswind but only 5 knots. I did notice taxiing out that the plane was wanting to weathervane a bit but nothing super serious. Takeoff was smooth but when I got about 100 AGL I got what felt like some pretty rough turbulence, to the point that maintaining coordination was tough. I flew through that and climbed up to pattern altitude and it smoothed out. When I turned to downwind I looked out the window to find the runway and noticed that during the turn I'd been blown close enough in that the runway looked like it was just over the main wheel (high wing). I put a crab angle in and tried to put some distance between me and the runway. After I got abeam the numbers you go out over some woods and fields and you get a black hole effect, so I estimated the time to extend downwind and turned base. That's kind of when things went pear-shaped. When I rolled out onto base leg I realized I was in the process of flying through the extended centerline so I called final and rolled it steep in, just as I hit the shear layer. Looked at the ASI just in time to see it bleeding off and I was like "do NOT stall the airplane," so pushed the nose over and gave it power. So my "turn to final" was a 270 degree turn and after I got below about 100 AGL I had to take all of the crosswind crab out as I got into the calmer winds near the surface. I was flustered by this point, carried a bunch of speed and floated what felt like a good thousand feet before touchdown. I will say touchdown was beautiful with no sideload and just a gentle squeak. If there WAS a bright spot that was it.

In retrospect when I realized on downwind that my pattern was boinked I should have departed to the practice area, climbed a bit to fly around and clear the cobwebs and then come back in for a straight in approach or re-enter the pattern. It was just me and one other guy out so I wasn't working with a lot of other traffic.

EDIT: I also should have definitely called a go-around rather than try to salvage that really gnarly turn to final. Pushing on with that was stpuid.
Click to expand...
Please get some time with a flight instructor.
Do some windy day time pattern work.
Getting a morning TAF for a night flight may not be best practice.
 
flyingpreacher said:
I’ve had flights with more than 200 hrs that I scrapped because I didn’t like what I was dealing with. One time, requested stop and go for night currency, then called tower and told them that I just wanted clearance to land. I didn’t feel like fighting conditions tonight. No shame in that. Especially when you’re working on something new/unfamiliar, don’t complicate that by adding other factors (ie. Unpleasant winds) to the mix. Get on the ground safely, then come back another day.

As others have said. Practice something enough and it becomes comfortable. Remember the first time you drive a car (especially if it was manual transmission) and you had a hard time with it? Now imagine doing that in icy conditions and that is sort of like what you’re doing here.

I’d say don’t be discouraged. You made the determination that your life was more important than forcing a couple more landings. That is good aeronautical decision making. Take encouragement from that and work on night landings another day!
Click to expand...



RyanShort1 said:
Most rookie pilots rapidly forget everything they learned about wind in their ground reference maneuvers. Go re-read about the rectangular course and apply that to some patterns ASAP.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I did. I'd planned on doing more patterns but cut it short after the first one. I think one of the things that is frustrating for me is that I took a year off while I was out of state and just got back into it last year. I've got about 240 hours now and I keep reminding myself that it puts me right in the middle of that danger area for accidents. When I got back into it I picked up airplane control really quickly and I've been practicing on commercial maneuvers to try and get that ticket in my back pocket. It just frustrates me because I have made some really basic mistakes like that as I've gotten back into it, and I think last night that the stronger-than-I-anticipated winds startled me and I didn't mentally catch back up to it. When I was doing my IR I did quite a few of my cross country hours at night with a friend who was also doing his instrument. I just haven't flown much at night at all since then and I think I just find it intimidating for some reason. I think that getting back and doing some more night flight would help. The club instructor I flew with last week, when we got ready to leave the airport actually told me to take the airplane and go around and make landings at a couple of different airports in the area at night to build up a feel of what the different size runways look like in the dark, and to familiarize myself with how lighting around the airport changes the perception of the runway.
 
Was there any warning of the wind shear? I mean anyone would be a little shocked by it, it doesn’t happen often so you cannot really practice it. Just have more airspeed going in. You’re here to tell the story so you did your job.
 
mandm said:
Was there any warning of the wind shear? I mean anyone would be a little shocked by it, it doesn’t happen often so you cannot really practice it. Just have more airspeed going in. You’re here to tell the story so you did your job.
Click to expand...

Not that I really saw. After I parked I went into the FBO to use the restroom and when I walked to the hangars it felt pretty calm. The ASOS said winds were out of the south at 5 knots. I am still fairly new at flying out of this particular airport and there are some hills just to the south. I mean JUST to the south. I'm wondering if they blanketed the runway a bit and then once I got above them I got more of the wind, because it got really rough about the time I got level with the hilltops. If that's the case, it is just something I want to file away to memory when flying out of that airport. When I was on downwind, which would be a due west course, I was holding a heading of around 230-240 to stay parallel with the runway at about 95-100 knots. I had the same kind of correction on short final until about 100 AGL and then it was calm enough that there wasn't really any correction required. I realized I was overcorrecting when I crossed the threshold for a crosswind that wasn't there anymore.
 
Interesting that this thread came out today. I had a very similar situation this evening. I picked up the weather on the ramp, and by the time I had taxed out and taken off, the winds and gusts had increased substantially. On downwind, I asked for full stop instead of stop and go as this was more than I wanted to fight tonight. Never let a currency issue, or anything else make you go up if you don’t think you should!
 
LoLPilot said:
Went out last night to do some pattern work. I don't have a whole lot of night hours because I don't really like the idea of flying at night in a single, but I've been trying to get over that a bit. Last week I did some night work with an instructor and it went really well so I went up to do some solo patterns for practice last night. Long story short winds were stronger than the TAF forecasted, there was a little bit of a shear layer about 100 AGL that knocked me around a bit and I wound up behind the airplane. Landed, taxi'd back to the hangar with my tail firmly between my legs and went home. Feeling kind of disheartened about it. Any advice for nighttime or dealing with nighttime apprehension?
Click to expand...
You can choose to not fly at night. I have almost 800 hrs and have flown at night for less than 1 hr.
 
LoLPilot said:
I got a TAF in the morning and it was saying about 10 knots straight down the runway. When I got to the airport I noticed a flag on a nearby business was blowing pretty well but when I got out of my car and walked to the hangar it felt pretty calm. Before I started up I got the ASOS on my handheld and the winds were a pretty direct crosswind but only 5 knots. I did notice taxiing out that the plane was wanting to weathervane a bit but nothing super serious. Takeoff was smooth but when I got about 100 AGL I got what felt like some pretty rough turbulence, to the point that maintaining coordination was tough. I flew through that and climbed up to pattern altitude and it smoothed out. When I turned to downwind I looked out the window to find the runway and noticed that during the turn I'd been blown close enough in that the runway looked like it was just over the main wheel (high wing). I put a crab angle in and tried to put some distance between me and the runway. After I got abeam the numbers you go out over some woods and fields and you get a black hole effect, so I estimated the time to extend downwind and turned base. That's kind of when things went pear-shaped. When I rolled out onto base leg I realized I was in the process of flying through the extended centerline so I called final and rolled it steep in, just as I hit the shear layer. Looked at the ASI just in time to see it bleeding off and I was like "do NOT stall the airplane," so pushed the nose over and gave it power. So my "turn to final" was a 270 degree turn and after I got below about 100 AGL I had to take all of the crosswind crab out as I got into the calmer winds near the surface. I was flustered by this point, carried a bunch of speed and floated what felt like a good thousand feet before touchdown. I will say touchdown was beautiful with no sideload and just a gentle squeak. If there WAS a bright spot that was it.

In retrospect when I realized on downwind that my pattern was boinked I should have departed to the practice area, climbed a bit to fly around and clear the cobwebs and then come back in for a straight in approach or re-enter the pattern. It was just me and one other guy out so I wasn't working with a lot of other traffic.

EDIT: I also should have definitely called a go-around rather than try to salvage that really gnarly turn to final. Pushing on with that was stpuid.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you have a good understanding of what went wrong and why.

The get-there-itis and gotta-complete-the-mission (even if it is just T&Gs) is very real. This is why of why I read most accident reports with a "But for the grace of God go I" kind of mentality since I can understand most chains of how they got there.

Sounds like you learned a very valuable flight lesson and all because you decided to go night flying!

So, yeah, I'd still say go back up at night soon. Would hate for you to take the wrong lesson and use this to fuel the dislike of night flying ever more. My vote would be no instructor needed as you seem to have a good grasp of what went wrong.
 
Remember a forecast is just a prediction, not a report. So unexpected wind shear, turbulence, etc is usually a surprise. And getting that when your not comfort level will sting. Just remember, if you can handle those winds during the day, you can handle them at night. You made the right call stoppping. Just get out there and get more experience.
 
LoLPilot said:
I am still fairly new at flying out of this particular airport and there are some hills just to the south. I mean JUST to the south.
Click to expand...
Are you at Spirit of St. Louis? Spirit with the winds out of the south is always an adventure.
 
MountainDude said:
You can choose to not fly at night. I have almost 800 hrs and have flown at night for less than 1 hr.
Click to expand...
Student pilots must log at least three hours of night flight including one cross-country flight over 100 miles and ten night takeoffs and landings to a full stop. I suspect you have flown more than one hour at night.
 
Night flights are harder. Simple as that. There are less visual cues, and the ones available are subject to various illusions.

A night flight under perfect conditions is pure joy. But throw in challenges like weather, winds, turbulence, heavy traffic, complex airspace, mechanical issues, or an unfamiliar aircraft and it can get real stressful real quick. Any proficiency weaknesses you have will be magnified.

Don't beat yourself up over it. If you want to get more confident at it, continue to practice. Be conservative with conditions as you build experience. If the little voice makes you uncomfortable, cancel and try again another day.
 
One suggestion might be to go somewhere vs just the pattern. Give yourself some time just cruising to get used to night vs taking off and immediately getting established in the pattern and then landing. I usually do a round robin of three airports when I need to get night current.
 
That sight picture at night it’s just different. It’s hard to get used to, but it’s worth a lot of practice. Even spending a night when it’s calm can be humbling. Easy to get low and slow. As a result, you come in a lot flatter and you really don’t flare correctly. Turn the lock up a bit on the landing just waiting for it to happen and bouncing it. At least those are my faults.
 
keen9 said:
Are you at Spirit of St. Louis? Spirit with the winds out of the south is always an adventure.
Click to expand...

It was indeed SUS, flying the right hand pattern off of 8R! And it was winds out of the south - 170. So that kind of experience is fairly typical and I need to be prepared for it?

Ed Haywood said:
Night flights are harder. Simple as that. There are less visual cues, and the ones available are subject to various illusions.

A night flight under perfect conditions is pure joy. But throw in challenges like weather, winds, turbulence, heavy traffic, complex airspace, mechanical issues, or an unfamiliar aircraft and it can get real stressful real quick. Any proficiency weaknesses you have will be magnified.

Don't beat yourself up over it. If you want to get more confident at it, continue to practice. Be conservative with conditions as you build experience. If the little voice makes you uncomfortable, cancel and try again another day.
Click to expand...

I’m planning on getting some more practice. I called up my instructor from the school I did my private and instrument at and we are going to go out on a windy night and try to get some night crosswind work in to shake some more rust off.

Hang 4 said:
One suggestion might be to go somewhere vs just the pattern. Give yourself some time just cruising to get used to night vs taking off and immediately getting established in the pattern and then landing. I usually do a round robin of three airports when I need to get night current.
Click to expand...

Yeah I was thinking that too. Even during day time when you’re running pattern work there is a lot going on at once, and St. Louis has quite a few airports around it. I could for sure do a “city tour,” and get a couple of airports in the logbook.
 
You can go out and get the full experience all around STL. KCPS has all kinds of odd angles of lights not aligned with the runways that with good winds aloft will make you feel all out of whack for what direction you are actually traveling, you got the nice bluff turbulence at SUS. SET can give you a nice blackhole on 36 (PCD either direction is even better). 1H0 can give you lights in all directions while worrying about airspace. I don't think I've done ALN at night, but I'm sure it has something unique too.
 
keen9 said:
You can go out and get the full experience all around STL. KCPS has all kinds of odd angles of lights not aligned with the runways that with good winds aloft will make you feel all out of whack for what direction you are actually traveling, you got the nice bluff turbulence at SUS. SET can give you a nice blackhole on 36 (PCD either direction is even better). 1H0 can give you lights in all directions while worrying about airspace. I don't think I've done ALN at night, but I'm sure it has something unique too.
Click to expand...

I did my initial training out of KSET and am very familiar with the black hole approach to 36! My first night flight ever during PPL was off of 36 and after the runway lights fell away and it was just darkness out in front was an eye opening experience. I haven't tried 1H0 or CPS at night, but ALN just has a bunch of small houses and the refineries around it which are brightly lit up so you have to be looking for the airport.
 
LoLPilot said:
That's exactly what I did. I'd planned on doing more patterns but cut it short after the first one. I think one of the things that is frustrating for me is that I took a year off while I was out of state and just got back into it last year. I've got about 240 hours now and I keep reminding myself that it puts me right in the middle of that danger area for accidents. When I got back into it I picked up airplane control really quickly and I've been practicing on commercial maneuvers to try and get that ticket in my back pocket. It just frustrates me because I have made some really basic mistakes like that as I've gotten back into it, and I think last night that the stronger-than-I-anticipated winds startled me and I didn't mentally catch back up to it. When I was doing my IR I did quite a few of my cross country hours at night with a friend who was also doing his instrument. I just haven't flown much at night at all since then and I think I just find it intimidating for some reason. I think that getting back and doing some more night flight would help. The club instructor I flew with last week, when we got ready to leave the airport actually told me to take the airplane and go around and make landings at a couple of different airports in the area at night to build up a feel of what the different size runways look like in the dark, and to familiarize myself with how lighting around the airport changes the perception of the runway.
Click to expand...
Every bad pattern I've made was followed by a bad landing.
 
Pinecone said:
I disagree.

A perfect pattern makes a perfect landing more likely. But I have seen and have myself botched landings for perfect patterns. And have had perfect landings from screwy patterns.
Click to expand...
I frequently fly screwy patterns on purpose, just to get the practice of dealing with it. And also TBH because it is fun to do pilot stuff like slipping hard into the flare. But to be fair, the things I do in a light aircraft with a big rudder would not be advisable in a heavier, faster, slicker aircraft.
 
Practice may not make you perfect but will certainly make you better. Also, you can always fly with a CFI for more training and advice. When I first started flying I used to do night flights all the time. In my first 900 hrs I did close to 200 hrs of night flying. Then I sold my plane and for almost 2 years did not fly at all. Moved further away from the airport and bought a new plane about 2 years ago, and just started flying at night about a month ago...Basically pattern work. Forgot how much more fun night flying is. Yes it is different but not sure it is more challenging. It certainly requires your full attention but then again so does day flying. One thing that helped me was getting my IFR. Still looking out the window but IFR taught me how to interpret what the instruments are telling me more seamlessly so I actually spend less time checking the instruments when VFR then I did before my IFR.
 
Flew with a CFI last night at a pilot controlled airport. We deliberately chose the crosswind runway to make it more of a challenge. Figured out that I tend to fly a closer pattern at night and so I get rush because I don’t have much of a base leg. Once he had me deliberately fly a longer crosswind leg and set up further out on downwind the base to final and landings were better.
 
LoLPilot said:
…knocked me around a bit and I wound up behind the airplane. Landed, taxi'd back to the hangar with my tail firmly between my legs and went home.
Click to expand...

on the contrary, this sounds like a good flight to me. You knew to pull the plug. Nice decision making.

night flights - look for a calm night with a full moon, no clouds. The airplane flies just fine, but you will hear every sound the airplane makes. Those same sounds happen during the day, you’re just too used to the to notice.
do that a few time and start going with less light.

Clouds are serious at night, if there’s significant cloud cover, that might still be a VFR no go for me.

ease into it.
 
Last edited:
This is an old thread, but one technique is to start working the pattern right before the sunsets especially if you aren’t proficient in night ops. You transition into the night flying. You can get a pretty good idea of the wind. As it gets darker, you keep turning your instruments lights dimmer. Also transition to more of flying a heading on downwind, base, etc to set yourself up for final. Things just seem happen slower at night, take your time getting comfortable before it is just black out there.
 
I had a similar experience as the OP early after my PPL -- a flight where it seemed calm on the surface but with just a little altitude there were some strong winds with turbulence. I don't think those conditions would have bothered me much during the day, but that night, they added concern where I already was a little apprehensive because I was flying at night. I did two bad landings that evening and decided it was enough. But it made me dig deeper into the forecasts to become aware of potential weather conditions like that, and I then picked out a few "easier" nights to get more practice in the dark. (I find crabbing the plane at night while in the pattern sometimes disorienting -- the ground references/feedback I get during the day just seem weirder at night when all I have is lights, and often moving lights from cars on roads/highways). I very much enjoy night flight, but I am much stricter in vetting both the conditions in which I will fly, and the mission(s) I want to accomplish. One common flight is to do a short cross country to one of two nearby airports with which I am familiar (one towered; one not), doing some pattern work at those, and then rewarding myself with some local sightseeing before doing a final landing at home. Sometimes I'll add a simulated RNAV approach into the mix (but doing it VFR as I don't have my IR). And on a few nice nights where I've felt confident in my recent flying, I've gone up and done the equivalent of the PPL long cross country at night, to practice flying longer distances. Almost none of this is practical (i.e., I think I've only taken 4-5 night flights or partial-night flights as part of going somewhere on a trip), but it does help become more confident at night. And some of the preflight planning you might take for granted during the day you just cannot do at night -- read the NOTAMS, make sure you have the right frequency for any pilot-controlled lighting (sometimes it's not the CTAF), research the airport environment to understand obstructions and terrain, see if the runway has a PAPI or VASI, make sure you have backup lighting on your person in case of electrical problems in the plane, and a backup radio to turn on any runway lights also in case of an electrical problem.
 
Stigma C12 driver said:
This is an old thread, but one technique is to start working the pattern right before the sunsets especially if you aren’t proficient in night ops. You transition into the night flying. You can get a pretty good idea of the wind. As it gets darker, you keep turning your instruments lights dimmer. Also transition to more of flying a heading on downwind, base, etc to set yourself up for final. Things just seem happen slower at night, take your time getting comfortable before it is just black out there.
Click to expand...
....and if you are working alone, setup for a soft field landing leaving a small bit of power "on"...say 1400 rpm. Get the final sink rate down to something very low and then a take bit of left aileron for a moment then right aileron for a moment then level as you sink, wash rinse and repeat. Us older guys call this "feeling for the runway". IT works. At night, the tendancy is to flare high. Counteract that by "feeling" for the pavement at a low rate of descent.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top