First Night Flight Tonight. Any Advice?

[numl0ck]

Tonight will be my first night training flight. I don't know if we're just going to go to GON and do some pattern work, or if we'll make the trip to Plymouth (PYM) MA to knock out the cross country.

Any advice of how things change at night, things to bring (flashlight, spare batteries etc...)?

Thanks.

 

[EppyGA]

Flashlight for pre-flight, multi-colored is good to have so you can use it in the cockpit if necessary. Pay attention to the instruments for flight attitude (not saying to not look outside ). If it is a x-country and you pass airports along the ay and use them as waypoints don't forget that most of them use PCL and you can light them up by tuning the CTAF and clicking away. Have fun.

 

[MAKG1]

Enjoy yourself! Night flying is a lot of fun. Especially with a full moon like we have now, you'll be able to see quite a lot more than you might expect, even if there are no lights anywhere.

 

[Anthony]

Bring a flashlight that you don't have to hold in your hand. Maglite sells a rubber piece that slips onto the end of the flashlight so you can hold it with your teeth. Also, get a cord and hang it around your neck so you don't have to bend down to pick it up or search for it in your bag. Have a back up flashlight also, you don't need to be changing batteries in the dark while trying to fly the plane.

I am very familiar with KGON as I used to commute up there with my Tiger as I was working for a company right on the Thames. Be careful with losing the horizon over the water as depending on runway, you'll probably be over the water a bit.

 

[Sac Arrow]

Generally, it's preferable to save Miller Time for after the flight.

 

[steingar]

Keep a radio tuned to the airports on your flight path. As you fly over them, click the mike button 5 times. It should light them up, both confirming your position and providing you with endless hours of enjoyment.

 

[rottydaddy]

Be prepared to do a little instrument flying, at least right after takeoff.
In addition to a head lamp or other hands free light, bring a bright light with a wide beam for the preflight. Its easy to miss things if youre only looking at a one foot circle at a time.
Review the night illusions material in your handbook and the AIM...also think about what might be different with emergencies, even if the clouds arent hiiding the moon.
Also be prepared for a lot of beauty, and smooth air. Spotting traffic, towers, and airports with beacons is a lot easier at night, too.

 

[Geico266]

Tonight will be my first night training flight. I don't know if we're just going to go to GON and do some pattern work, or if we'll make the trip to Plymouth (PYM) MA to knock out the cross country.

Any advice of how things change at night, things to bring (flashlight, spare batteries etc...)?

Thanks.

I love flying st night. Just have fun!

 

[AggieMike88]

Tonight will be my first night training flight. I don't know if we're just going to go to GON and do some pattern work, or if we'll make the trip to Plymouth (PYM) MA to knock out the cross country.

Any advice of how things change at night, things to bring (flashlight, spare batteries etc...)?

Thanks.

Be on the look out for exploding rocket engines.

My first night cross country had one.

 

[Clark1961]

Keep a radio tuned to the airports on your flight path. As you fly over them, click the mike button 5 times. It should light them up, both confirming your position and providing you with endless hours of enjoyment.

You must be related to my primary CFI as he used to amuse himself by turning on every airport's lights. Never saw the novelty myself though I will admit to turning on airport lights when overflying black holes and/or providing for locating the only safe landing site within many miles.

 

[AggieMike88]

Be aware of how the runway edge lighting is situated a the fields you'll be operating at.

One airport near me (52F) is a narrow 40-foot runway and the edge lights are 10-15 from the actual edge of the concrete and in the grass.

Another I've heard of has the lights mounted on short poles, so you have the illusion that the surface is higher than it actually is.


None the less, night flying instruction is some good experience and a nice change of pace from the other instruction. Make sure to enjoy it!!

One more thing for the kit bag. Bug spray! I remember getting hit by an entire air wing of mozzies during one of my pre-flights. Didn't make the flight as much fun from scratching at all of the bites.

 

[flyingmoose]

Just have fun. Your instructor will help you thru the learning. I remember how dark it was the first time I took off at night. There was no real horizon and you kinda had to climb on the instruments. Emergency procedures become a bit daunting, but you will enjoy it.

 

[steingar]

You must be related to my primary CFI as he used to amuse himself by turning on every airport's lights. Never saw the novelty myself though I will admit to turning on airport lights when overflying black holes and/or providing for locating the only safe landing site within many miles.

At night navigation becomes limited to the lights you can see and consequently becomes much more difficult. Turning on runway lights is one of the few tools one has to visually determine one's position. Thus I feel it a good tool for a student pilot on their first extended night flight.

 

[ElPaso Pilot]

... assume that you may have one or more electrical or lighting 'failures' during the flight, and think ahead as to how you would handle each one of them.

 

[DogDaddy]

You'll need a flashlight to do your preflight. Depending on how your airport is arranged you might be able to turn on the airport lights for your preflight. I do that at my airport using my handheld. Then I have the rotating beacon shining on the plane.
In any kind of reduced visibility, including darkness, there's a tendency to keep descending and/or to be lower than you think you are. During the day we fly toward the horizon or we point the nose toward a particular cloud. At night we might tend to point the nose at lights in the distance, where are on the ground.
At night I often find myself flying the pattern a little low; I have to look at the altimeter a little more than I do during daylight. Also I have a tendency to carry too much power in the pattern. I'm used to judging by the sound of the engine but atnight I have to keep checking the tachometer.
Probably one of the biggest issues is, when it's time to flare, the runway seems to jump up and meet you at night. In other words, it's harder to judge our height above the runway and therefore we tend to flare a little too late (and land hard or even land on the nosewheel). If you have hangars or other bldgs along the runway, use those (with your peripheral vision) to help judge your height: when you are even with the roofs of the bldgs it's time to round out. if you're still a little unsure of when to flare, let the plane float and judge your sink rate by looking at the runway lights up ahead. Remember not to look too close in.
Hopefully your instructor will also have you practice landing with no landing light, and then with no runway lights. You never know, one day your landing light may burn out during a flight and you'll have no choice but to land without it.
Have fun! Oh one more thing....on your takeoff, as you rotate you may not see anything directly in front of you except total darkness as you climb out. Just keep the wings level and you can also quickly glance to each side to see the ground lights and keep the wings level. I tend to climb less aggressively at night to help me maintain visibility.

 

[hooligan]

Verify correct altimeter setting. Redundancy is a good thing,cross checking GPS reported altitude versus altimeter indication.

 

[Clark1961]

At night navigation becomes limited to the lights you can see and consequently becomes much more difficult. Turning on runway lights is one of the few tools one has to visually determine one's position. Thus I feel it a good tool for a student pilot on their first extended night flight.

Before I became addicted to the magenta line and it's associated intoxicants, I used to do IFR at night - I Follow Roads. It works well, even in cities...

 

[MBDiagMan]

My advice? Relax and enjoy it, AND, you know those nice, pretty landings you've been doing? Don't expect them all to be that way tonight! Don't worry, you'll get used to it and if you do your 10 night landings tonight, you'll have them down well before you're done.

 

[saracelica]

If you don't like your landings - turn the landing light off (it's a joke) One your CFI will probably tell you at some point...mine did.

 

[N2124v]

The airplane will sound different.....

 

[\__[Ô]__/]

At night I often find myself flying the pattern a little low; I have to look at the altimeter a little more than I do during daylight.

I tend to find myself higher because at night it always looks to me like i'm lower than i actually am.

Probably one of the biggest issues is, when it's time to flare, the runway seems to jump up and meet you at night.

Sure does, especially if you forget to turn on the landing light.

 

[DavidWhite]

The airplane will sound different.....

It makes weird noises and runs rougher too.

 

[bflynn]

One I haven't seen mentioned - if you can, get a green light flashlight. The magenta color on charts completely disappears in red light and you don't want to be using white light at night as it will ruin your night vision. Energizer makes a triple beam headlamp that I got at Target which works well. If used for short time periods, the green light doesn't impact night vision much and charts are still readable.

 

[ScottK]

Tonight will be my first night training flight. I don't know if we're just going to go to GON and do some pattern work, or if we'll make the trip to Plymouth (PYM) MA to knock out the cross country.

Any advice of how things change at night, things to bring (flashlight, spare batteries etc...)?

Thanks.

Remember to recycle the lights before you land. Don't ask me how I know.

 

[MAKG1]

No one has mentioned this -- for night VFR flying, you can see city lights a lot further than in the daytime. This can be disorienting! For my night cross-country, I spotted my destination (Sacramento) from 50 miles away (Livermore), just as soon as I climbed high enough over the mountains to get line of sight. You can't see this in the daytime.

Sitting in the jumpseat in our 747, climbing out from Palmdale over Gorman, I spotted and identified every airport beacon in the desert up to Bishop, 150 miles away. We generally only do night flights; we're an observatory.

 

[Old Geek]

The airplane will sound different.....

And not in a good way.

 

[DogDaddy]

And tell your instructor you'd like to do some maneuvers at night. Do some ground reference manuevers, slow flight, stalls...it will seem weird at first but once you get used to it, you'll be even better at night flying. Do stalls too at night. The plane doesn't know if it's day or night; it will perform exactly the same.

 

[jpower]

My advice? Relax and enjoy it, AND, you know those nice, pretty landings you've been doing? Don't expect them all to be that way tonight! Don't worry, you'll get used to it and if you do your 10 night landings tonight, you'll have them down well before you're done.

If you don't like your landings - turn the landing light off (it's a joke) One your CFI will probably tell you at some point...mine did.

The airplane will sound different.....

It makes weird noises and runs rougher too.

Remember to recycle the lights before you land. Don't ask me how I know.

And not in a good way.

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

If you are looking for an airport in an urban / suburban area, it's that big dark spot on the ground.

 

[RV10flyer]

Everyone has seemed to cover most things.

Here are my additions:

1. Don't fly if Temp/DP spread is <5C.
2. Watch for halo around ground lights.
3. If you have to make an emergency landing into an area of unknown at night, maintain max glide until 500' agl then min controllable spd to touchdown.
4. Verify rwy hdg on dg and hold that hdg on climbout. You won't spiral in if the hdg remains the same.
5. Wear sunglasses for a few hours before dark.
6. Close one eye if someone shines a bright light in your eyes.
7. It will be difficult to see planes below you if over bright city lights.
8. Scan and don't stare. You have a 5 degree blind spot.
9. Know how to engage autopilot(hdg/alt hold)if you need it.
10. Always turn nearest airport lights on in case of emergency, one less thing to do.
11. Most airport lights turn off after 15 min, reactivate before landing. Not fun if they go off during your flare.
12. Do a low pass over rwy to check for animals and be ready to go around at anytime if you see those beady eyes.
13. Check interior and exterior lights before A&P goes home in case bulbs need replacing.
14. Top off tanks! Double check caps!
15. Use VASI/PAPI if available.
16. Raise your visibility/ceiling minimums higher than what is required.
17. Taxi slowly, it is easy to go too fast.
18. Practice checking for ice on wing leading edges even though may not be needed now.
19. Ask your instructor if you can practice steep turns at a safe altitude.
20. You have 88% moon illumination tonight, excellent.
21. Get flight following.
22. Use towns, rivers and lakes as check points.
23. Set your com2 to 121.5
24. Check your ammeter occasionally.
25. Sit it cockpit, close eyes and feel for each item. You will get less clumsy with practice.

 

[denverpilot]

Any advice of how things change at night, things to bring (flashlight, spare batteries etc...)?

It gets dark.

 

[Sac Arrow]

No one has mentioned this -- for night VFR flying, you can see city lights a lot further than in the daytime. This can be disorienting! For my night cross-country, I spotted my destination (Sacramento) from 50 miles away (Livermore), just as soon as I climbed high enough over the mountains to get line of sight. You can't see this in the daytime.

Sitting in the jumpseat in our 747, climbing out from Palmdale over Gorman, I spotted and identified every airport beacon in the desert up to Bishop, 150 miles away. We generally only do night flights; we're an observatory.

By the same token, spotting Executive at night can be difficult because its lights blend in with all the other lights. Even makes the beacon hard to see.

International, however, sticks out like John Holmes in a Thai massage parlor.

 

[iWantWings]

When lining up perfectly on short final to land on the . . . taxiway, tell your instructor "just kidding".

And while wearing one of those head lamps, look your instructor straight in the eye - it's all about eye-contact when speaking to him/her. :wink2:

From personal experience

Enjoy the night flight (oh and instructor might ask u about telling the direction of aircraft based on orientation of nav lights, as well as airport beacons for civilian land, water, military and heliport. Might be asked about those during flight to keep u awake)

 

[woodfire]

If you don't like your landings - turn the landing light off (it's a joke) One your CFI will probably tell you at some point...mine did.

My CFI told me if we lost the engine to wait untill we were 200 AGL to turn the landing light on and if I did not like what I saw then turn it back off.

 

[denverpilot]

And while wearing one of those head lamps, look your instructor straight in the eye - it's all about eye-contact when speaking to him/her. :wink2:

BTDT. Jesse is probably still seeing spots.

 

[ChrisK]

I like flying with one of those lights that clip on to a ball cap as a backup to my headlamp. Backups and spare batteries are good.

That dew point spread thing is no joke. I went on my first night XC since ppc with another low time pilot last night (about 2.5 hours round trip). Briefer had nothing bad to say so off we went. By the time we landed fog was just starting to roll in. We still had good via through the beginnings of fog but the field AWOS was reporting 1.25m vis, and the return briefer was .... less than optimistic. We checked our reverse route, got the heck out of there, and beat fog at home by about 20m. We had 3 extra hours of fuel and were prepared to go to one of the two dual military airports and fly an ASR approach if we got really stuck.

It was an excellent lesson on how fast that dew point spread can turn on you at night, and why it is important to fill up those tanks! Fuel means options.

Flying at night is beautiful. Enjoy!

 

[numl0ck]

WOW! Where to start!? Thanks everyone for the advice. I did have a chance to read the thread before I took off.

We flew from WST to PYM and back. 1.9 on the hobbs. I ended up preflighting during the dusk hours, so no flashlight required for that part. My instructor and I talked at the airport for a bit waiting for "night" to start. It was a great flight. Great vis, watched the moon rise, no clouds. I can't wait to do it again.

Enjoy yourself! Night flying is a lot of fun. Especially with a full moon like we have now, you'll be able to see quite a lot more than you might expect, even if there are no lights anywhere.

I love flying st night. Just have fun!

We did have a great time. My instructor and I really get along well.

It makes weird noises and runs rougher too.

I noticed that more on the way home more so than on the way there. I kept a closer eye on the tach for some reason...

It gets dark.

Thanks coach.

Everyone has seemed to cover most things.

Here are my additions:

1. Don't fly if Temp/DP spread is <5C.
2. Watch for halo around ground lights.
3. If you have to make an emergency landing into an area of unknown at night, maintain max glide until 500' agl then min controllable spd to touchdown.
4. Verify rwy hdg on dg and hold that hdg on climbout. You won't spiral in if the hdg remains the same.
5. Wear sunglasses for a few hours before dark.
6. Close one eye if someone shines a bright light in your eyes.
7. It will be difficult to see planes below you if over bright city lights.
8. Scan and don't stare. You have a 5 degree blind spot.
9. Know how to engage autopilot(hdg/alt hold)if you need it.
10. Always turn nearest airport lights on in case of emergency, one less thing to do.
11. Most airport lights turn off after 15 min, reactivate before landing. Not fun if they go off during your flare.
12. Do a low pass over rwy to check for animals and be ready to go around at anytime if you see those beady eyes.
13. Check interior and exterior lights before A&P goes home in case bulbs need replacing.
14. Top off tanks! Double check caps!
15. Use VASI/PAPI if available.
16. Raise your visibility/ceiling minimums higher than what is required.
17. Taxi slowly, it is easy to go too fast.
18. Practice checking for ice on wing leading edges even though may not be needed now.
19. Ask your instructor if you can practice steep turns at a safe altitude.
20. You have 88% moon illumination tonight, excellent.
21. Get flight following.
22. Use towns, rivers and lakes as check points.
23. Set your com2 to 121.5
24. Check your ammeter occasionally.
25. Sit it cockpit, close eyes and feel for each item. You will get less clumsy with practice.

We used PVD Approach the whole way.
Great list. Thanks!

I like flying with one of those lights that clip on to a ball cap as a backup to my headlamp. Backups and spare batteries are good.

That dew point spread thing is no joke. I went on my first night XC since ppc with another low time pilot last night (about 2.5 hours round trip). Briefer had nothing bad to say so off we went. By the time we landed fog was just starting to roll in. We still had good via through the beginnings of fog but the field AWOS was reporting 1.25m vis, and the return briefer was .... less than optimistic. We checked our reverse route, got the heck out of there, and beat fog at home by about 20m. We had 3 extra hours of fuel and were prepared to go to one of the two dual military airports and fly an ASR approach if we got really stuck.

It was an excellent lesson on how fast that dew point spread can turn on you at night, and why it is important to fill up those tanks! Fuel means options.

Flying at night is beautiful. Enjoy!

The fog is really no joke around here in the spring/fall. That will be something I def have to keep in mind all the time.


Thanks again everyone for the input. Really really good stuff.

 

[numl0ck]

Missed a few replies

No one has mentioned this -- for night VFR flying, you can see city lights a lot further than in the daytime. This can be disorienting! For my night cross-country, I spotted my destination (Sacramento) from 50 miles away (Livermore), just as soon as I climbed high enough over the mountains to get line of sight. You can't see this in the daytime.

I fell "prey" to this effect. I spotted the beacons for both airports, and wanted to start descending, but were still 15+nm away. Very deceiving.

And tell your instructor you'd like to do some maneuvers at night. Do some ground reference manuevers, slow flight, stalls...it will seem weird at first but once you get used to it, you'll be even better at night flying. Do stalls too at night. The plane doesn't know if it's day or night; it will perform exactly the same.

I will keep that in mind next time. Thanks.

Remember to recycle the lights before you land. Don't ask me how I know.

Yup, that happened to us at PYM. They went out as I was on final they didn't come back up right away, so executed a go-around.

If you don't like your landings - turn the landing light off (it's a joke) One your CFI will probably tell you at some point...mine did.

Yup, he said that too.

Just have fun. Your instructor will help you thru the learning. I remember how dark it was the first time I took off at night. There was no real horizon and you kinda had to climb on the instruments. Emergency procedures become a bit daunting, but you will enjoy it.

I can usually hold my altitude pretty well, but tonight I seemed to be wavering within 200ft of my target. PVD Approach didn't ever mention it to me, so I guess it wasn't that bad.

 

[numl0ck]

Oh yeah, one last thing: don't be that guy who turns the lights on full intensity while someone else is 10ft off the runway trying to land. That happened to me tonight - I could see the runway VERY WELL but was blind to everything else. Special thanks to that pilot tonight.

 

[denverpilot]

Oh yeah, one last thing: don't be that guy who turns the lights on full intensity while someone else is 10ft off the runway trying to land. That happened to me tonight - I could see the runway VERY WELL but was blind to everything else. Special thanks to that pilot tonight.

Heh... wait until you're doing pattern work and they turn off because they timed out... heheheh... oh, crap... black hole... going around!