Found my night VFR limit

Ed Haywood

Ed Haywood

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Big Ed
On Friday I flew in my Decathlon from Tampa to GVL in North Georgia to visit my son. Had planned on flying to Chapel Hill, North Carolina on Saturday morning for a social event. A cold front was pushing in from the west, with forecast arrival of hard IFR at midnight. My plane and I are VFR only.

Checking weather at dinner, it became apparent that if I stayed til morning, I would be stuck there for several days. So, I made the decision to fly at night, which I usually enjoy.

When I got to the airport at 9:30pm, the sky was clear, with stars visible above and to the horizon in direction of flight. All airfields in the area reported VFR. Near optimal conditions except moonrise not until 3am. I felt comfortable launching. It took about 30 minutes to get gassed up and in the air.

I climbed up to 3500 and it was dark. So dark. I dialed up ATIS/AWOS at several local fields and all were reporting overcast 3600. Felt like I was under the blackest cloud ever. Ceiling had completely closed up in those 30 minutes.

At that point I got concerned about the wisdom of pressing on. I descended to 500 below the ceiling, turned 90 degrees south so I would not get farther from my departure field, and reduced power to slow cruise while I decided what to do.

I could see ground lights from Athens 20 miles to the east. I decided to hop from airport to airport while monitoring ATIS/AWOS in front of me. When I got to the GA/SC line after about 30 minutes of flying, reported ceiling ahead was clear below 12K. I climbed to 5500' and continued to my destination without concern.

It was a successful flight, but more stressful than I cared for. Not being able to see the ceiling above you is spooky.

So my personal lesson learned is that I don't care for VFR night flight on moonless nights, and will avoid that in the future.
 
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Yeah I was at work Friday night. It was dark. You probably got out just in time. OVC layer started developing around 10 pm. Even with NVGs, with no ground illum, ceilings are tricky to determine.
 
That's a big trip to do reliably vfr. I know your airplane is vfr, but if you want to fly like this you should consider getting your ifr ticket and figuring out how to make your plane suitable, or find one you can use. Forecasts are not that precise.
 
I flew home Friday night also a little North of you. Sometimes I'll look up the moon phase to determine estimated ambient light. Friday was supposedly 21%. Departing small poorly lit airports in areas lacking much surrounding ground lighting is the hardest for me. Right at rotation everything goes dark. It's worse than typical ifr.
 
A little furthe north this time of year, even with equipment and training/currency/proficiency, icing becomes an added concern to the night + IFR equation, so you are not the only person with night limits.

Thanks for sharing. Glad you’re here to do so! The only way to mitigate would have been to just stay until the next best conditions.
 
I had to fly over the Appalachian mountains to get home Friday. Indeed ice is a concern this time of year, but Friday the freezing level was forecast for 11k. It's easy to blunder into a cloud on a dark night though.
 
There's also "the other IFR," namely "I Follow Roads." However, that method has its limitations, too. The worst case of spacial disorientation I ever had was on a night VFR flight over the desert. While I was fiddling with a radio, I got into an unusual attitude, and my brain insisted on interpreting a line of car lights on a highway as the horizon. Thank God for my instrument training.

I agree that being unable to see clouds at night is a problem, especially in areas where there is not much illumination from the ground.
 
Ed Haywood said:
So my personal lesson learned is that I don't care for VFR night flight with no moon, and will avoid that in the future.
Click to expand...

I learned that one a long time ago. Ended up in Nashville right at sunset going home from Oshkosh. Legal visibility but overcast and hazy. The next 125 miles were night VFR in haze and with an overcast, so no moonlight, no stars and no real horizon. Flew point to point between pools of light (e.g. outdoor lights). Did not like.
 
Cloudy nights or moonless nights are terrible to fly in, especially in some areas with little to no ground lights. In the Prairies it's almost fine. All flat, no trees, you can see city lights from hundreds of miles away. Plus, roads are straight and you can simply follow them with the traffic of ground vehicles. However, the one flight that has discouraged me from doing night flights ever since was my last leg from Illinois to Florida last winter. Only the last 30 minutes of that flight was after civil twilight but holy cow was it dark! It was a rainy night, ceilings were plenty high but completely overcast so no moon, no stars but rain. Not heavy but still distracting in a way. At one point, I completely lost all visual references outside. I looked at the instruments and asked my wife to let me know when she can see the city lights of Panama City or the airport and keep an eye out for traffic. I was also on VFR flight following so did get traffic updates from them. I didn't want to look outside and become spatially disoriented. This lasted maybe 5 minutes in total before my wife could see the city lights and then ATC pointed out the airport and cleared us straight in. However, those 5 minutes felt like an hour. After that night flight, I only did one more night flight but that was back in the Prairies and by the time it turned dark, I could see the destination city already so no big deal. I don't think I'll ever go at night again, unless it's a clear night with at least a half moon or over very lighted areas I know and have flown during the day before.
 
Ed Haywood said:
On Friday I flew in my Decathlon from Tampa to GVL in North Georgia to visit my son. Had planned on flying to Chapel Hill, North Carolina on Saturday morning for a social event.
A cold front was pushing in from the west, with forecast arrival of hard IFR at midnight. My plane and I are VFR only.

Checking weather at dinner, it became apparent that if I stayed til morning, I would be stuck there for several days. So, I made the decision to fly at night, which I usually enjoy.

When I got to the airport at 9:30pm, the sky was clear, with stars visible above and to the horizon in direction of flight. All airfields in the area reported VFR. Near optimal conditions except moonrise not until 3am. I felt comfortable launching.
It took about 30 minutes to get gassed up and in the air.

I climbed up to 3500 and HFS it was dark. So dark.
I dialed up ATIS/AWOS at several local fields and all were reporting overcast at 3600. Felt like I was under the blackest cloud ever.

At that point I got concerned about the wisdom of pressing on. I descended to 500 below the reported ceiling, turned 90 degrees south so I would not get farther from my departure field, and reduced power to slow cruise while I decided what to do.

I could see ground lights from Athens 20 miles to the east. I decided to hop from airport to airport while monitoring conditions in front of me, landing if necessary. When I got to the GA/SC line, the ceiling was clear below 12K, so I climbed higher and continued to my destination.

It was a successful flight, but more stressful than I cared for. Not being able to see the ceiling above you is spooky.

So my personal lesson learned is that I don't care for VFR night flight with no moon, and will avoid that in the future.
Click to expand...
Thanks for posting this, sounds like you exercised great ADM.
 
Chrisgoesflying said:
Cloudy nights or moonless nights are terrible to fly in, especially in some areas with little to no ground lights. In the Prairies it's almost fine. All flat, no trees, you can see city lights from hundreds of miles away. Plus, roads are straight and you can simply follow them with the traffic of ground vehicles. However, the one flight that has discouraged me from doing night flights ever since was my last leg from Illinois to Florida last winter. Only the last 30 minutes of that flight was after civil twilight but holy cow was it dark! It was a rainy night, ceilings were plenty high but completely overcast so no moon, no stars but rain. Not heavy but still distracting in a way. At one point, I completely lost all visual references outside. I looked at the instruments and asked my wife to let me know when she can see the city lights of Panama City or the airport and keep an eye out for traffic. I was also on VFR flight following so did get traffic updates from them. I didn't want to look outside and become spatially disoriented. This lasted maybe 5 minutes in total before my wife could see the city lights and then ATC pointed out the airport and cleared us straight in. However, those 5 minutes felt like an hour. After that night flight, I only did one more night flight but that was back in the Prairies and by the time it turned dark, I could see the destination city already so no big deal. I don't think I'll ever go at night again, unless it's a clear night with at least a half moon or over very lighted areas I know and have flown during the day before.
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Similar experience for me, except not Florida... flying solo from Las Cruces NM to Roswell NM about an hour after dark on a moonless night.

About 100nm barren stretch w/o any kind of consistent visual horizon. It's so vast, dark and empty out there. At best I'd see 1-2 lone random lights down below every 5-10 miles maybe. Climbed 2k above MEF for the area and just cruised - scanning instruments constantly.

On paper it was CAVU, pure VFR, which is why I launched. I thought it'd be just a normal night flight. In reality about 20 minutes into it I realized it was like flying IFR. Nothing but black out the window in every direction.

Factor in that you reliably lose flight following contact with both KELP approach and Albuquerque Center for 20-30 minutes of that stretch and you feel very, very alone. Lost 'em both on my way there (day) and way back (night).

Won't be repeating that flight again at night time :).
 
Having flown into invisible clouds at night, yeah, it can happen pretty suddenly.

whatever your backup plan is for inadvertent IMC, you need to be extremely proficient at it. Not just “I do 20 minutes of instrument work in my flight review,” but extended time flying, maneuvering, navigating, and diverting. And finding frequencies, tuning radios, and practicing communicating your emergency to ATC.

This may sound odd, but the better you are at the above, the less time you have to spend scanning instruments when you’re flying VFR, and the more time you can spend looking out the window avoiding inadvertent IMC.
 
One thing I had forgotten because I have not flown in 19 months while restoring my airplane. It always looks darker where you are headed, because of the prop disk. When I turned 90 degrees to sort things out, it flummoxed me for a minute that my old DOF was suddenly brighter.

Oh yeah, and I was flying on an engine with 10 hours SMOH, so all the PoA comments about infant mortality in overhauled engines were rolling around in my head. And I installed the engine, so I spent a lot of time imagining all the ways I could have screwed that up.
 
I love your reflection of whether you made the right decision or not. Just because we make the flight safely does not mean we made the right decision. I remember a similar flight, but I was taking more chances than I usually take. I was IFR at night, but that was my last IFR nite flight. If I had lost an engine I hate to think of my options. I will fly IFR during day with 500 ft ceilings, I will fly VFR on a clear night, but no IFR @ nite. It gets darker the closer you get to the ground on a moonless nite, there is no breaking out in the clear, it only gets darker.
 
PaulS said:
That's a big trip to do reliably vfr. I know your airplane is vfr, but if you want to fly like this you should consider getting your ifr ticket and figuring out how to make your plane suitable, or find one you can use. Forecasts are not that precise.
Click to expand...
My main flying activity is competitive aerobatics. IFR legal aerobatic aircraft are rare and expensive. Just gotta accept you are gonna get stuck sometimes.
 
Ed Haywood said:
On Friday I flew in my Decathlon from Tampa to GVL in North Georgia to visit my son. Had planned on flying to Chapel Hill, North Carolina on Saturday morning for a social event.
A cold front was pushing in from the west, with forecast arrival of hard IFR at midnight. My plane and I are VFR only.

Checking weather at dinner, it became apparent that if I stayed til morning, I would be stuck there for several days. So, I made the decision to fly at night, which I usually enjoy.

When I got to the airport at 9:30pm, the sky was clear, with stars visible above and to the horizon in direction of flight. All airfields in the area reported VFR. Near optimal conditions except moonrise not until 3am. I felt comfortable launching.
It took about 30 minutes to get gassed up and in the air.

I climbed up to 3500 and HFS it was dark. So dark.
I dialed up ATIS/AWOS at several local fields and all were reporting overcast at 3600. Felt like I was under the blackest cloud ever.

At that point I got concerned about the wisdom of pressing on. I descended to 500 below the ceiling, turned 90 degrees south so I would not get farther from my departure field, and reduced power to slow cruise while I decided what to do.

I could see ground lights from Athens 20 miles to the east. I decided to hop from airport to airport while monitoring ATIS/AWOS in front of me. When I got to the GA/SC line, reported ceiling was clear below 12K, so I climbed higher and continued to my destination without concern.

It was a successful flight, but more stressful than I cared for. Not being able to see the ceiling above you is spooky.

So my personal lesson learned is that I don't care for VFR night flight on moonless nights, and will avoid that in the future.
Click to expand...
3500 and 20 sm flight visibility is VFR.
 
At night, I also tune into the pilot controlled lighting airports to keep engaged in the flight, and also checking the ATIS, I find it quite fun.

Flying at night can be scary, I’ve had several times I scared myself. I am more prone to landing the aircraft (ASAP) when uncomfortable at night compared to anything else.

Night flight over Lake Michigan is one of the things that scares me the most. Flying during the day you can just go and have fun, it’s pretty easy and relaxing. But at night when playing around with the lake, I need to be well ahead of the game to do that. I do not like making any turns towards the lake, I usually get spatial disorientation and then I’m fighting to keep the airplane in a stable turn at the right altitude.

Another time I was night VFR in the mountains, I did not like that and landed. Could not find the airport I probably made 3-4 approaches until I got it right. On the go around, it was scary, couldn’t see anything and was worried about terrain, I employed the help of my passenger for terrain clearances on this. Foreflight probably saved my life that night. I couldn’t see the terrain at all.

Glad to hear that we are all going through this, as it makes me question my judgment and almost embarrassed to share my story until I hear from others. Glad that you are ok and that you learned something from this experience too.

I will add that I would fly at night and go to 8-10 airports to practice night flying,
 
I am IR although I prefer to fly VFR especially at night. If you are IR and go IMC, which you may be directed to do so by ATC, your workload increases significantly. I rather keep VFR / VMC and if I lose visibility, then note my current heading and altitude, maintain altitude, smooth 180 turn (opposite direction). Also know what the safe altitude is on your charts in case you need to adjust.
 
Even with a visible "horizon" you can get messed up.

I was on my T-39 day/night out and back. Coming back from Tinker AFB to Laughlin, there was a nice moon and smooth stratus deck below. Very clear "horizon."

My heading was drifting like crazy. It took me a while to figure that the cloud deck was canted about 15 - 20 degrees. So wings level with the "horizon" was a 15 - 20 degree lleft bank. I had to transition to instruments, to avoid following the "horizon."
 
The fun of flying at night has left , it has become very stressful on cloudy nights. I’m IFR rated and still don’t like it.
 
mandm said:
I am more prone to landing the aircraft (ASAP) when uncomfortable at night compared to anything else.
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This is a key skill. As long as you are willing to land and navigate to keep that option available, you can manage risk.
In my flight, I went from airfield to airfield in 20-30nm legs. When I passed over each airfield, I tuned in ATIS at the next field and checked the ceiling. I then tuned in CTAF and turned on the lights. Then I flew to it. I always knew I was within 5-10 minutes of a viable landing option, in case the ceiling dropped.
 
I liked to file IFR on a perfectly clear night flight for no other reason than to be already dialed into the system if something went south.

Night engine out procedures:

1. Attain best glide speed, head to best guess of a suitable landing area.
2. Execute checklist.
3. Turn off all unnecessary electronics to save power.
4. Turn on landing light at about 1,000 feet AGL.
5. If you don't like what you see, turn it back off.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
View attachment 121037
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This was right at my limit. This now looks a lot brighter than I remember. Full moon, clear skies, but more dark thank I like... until about St Louis. In reality I had good contrast once I cleared the tree line.
mandm said:
At night, I also tune into the pilot controlled lighting airports to keep engaged in the flight, and also checking the ATIS, I find it quite fun.
Click to expand...
My CFI for my commercial showed me this game when doing the night XC.. see if we could spot the airport beacons from far away.
 
Tantalum said:
Thanks for posting this, sounds like you exercised great ADM.
Click to expand...
I agree with Tantalum. You took in all the info, made the best decision with the cards you were dealt and handled the unexpected in a very interesting way in my opinion. I really love how the world looks from up there at night. This time of year where sunset is about 1600 here, that's about all I can do. Thank you for sharing.
 
Ed Haywood said:
So my personal lesson learned is that I don't care for VFR night flight on moonless nights, and will avoid that in the future
Click to expand...
I can appreciate that. For me, pre-gps the worry on VFR nights was not UA, but that if i somehow wondered a few miles off course I might struggle to see dark terrain against a dark sky.

My current fear I'm going to tackle one day is flying towards the ocean at night. In an otherwise VFR night the Pacific Ocean looks like a black void. It's not just dark, but it appears to be flying into nothing. Probably some weird psychological defect I need to conquer one day.
 
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Pi1otguy said:
Probably some weird psychological defect I need to conquer one day.
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Funny. I get the exact same feeling. I was just telling another pilot I was flying with during a sunset flight that it's very 'Twilight zone', it certainly feels like you're entering a metaphysical nothingness. I get it over the desert at night too.. when leaving San Diego heading east, as soon as Palm Springs and the Salton Sea are behind you you enter the void.
 
Pi1otguy said:
My current fear I'm going to tackle one day is flying towards the ocean at night. In an otherwise VFR night the Pacific Ocean looks like a black void. It's not just dark, but it appears to be flying into nothing. Probably some weird psychological defect I need to conquer one day.
Click to expand...

That's not a defect, that is self preservation. In Florida, we lose aircraft to night VFR takeoffs over water all the time. Venice lost 2 aircraft this year alone. 8 dead.
 
Ed Haywood said:
On Friday I flew in my Decathlon from Tampa to GVL in North Georgia to visit my son. Had planned on flying to Chapel Hill, North Carolina on Saturday morning for a social event. A cold front was pushing in from the west, with forecast arrival of hard IFR at midnight. My plane and I are VFR only.

Checking weather at dinner, it became apparent that if I stayed til morning, I would be stuck there for several days. So, I made the decision to fly at night, which I usually enjoy.

When I got to the airport at 9:30pm, the sky was clear, with stars visible above and to the horizon in direction of flight. All airfields in the area reported VFR. Near optimal conditions except moonrise not until 3am. I felt comfortable launching. It took about 30 minutes to get gassed up and in the air.

I climbed up to 3500 and HFS it was dark. So dark. I dialed up ATIS/AWOS at several local fields and all were reporting overcast at 3600. Felt like I was under the blackest cloud ever.

At that point I got concerned about the wisdom of pressing on. I descended to 500 below the ceiling, turned 90 degrees south so I would not get farther from my departure field, and reduced power to slow cruise while I decided what to do.

I could see ground lights from Athens 20 miles to the east. I decided to hop from airport to airport while monitoring ATIS/AWOS in front of me. When I got to the GA/SC line, reported ceiling was clear below 12K, so I climbed higher and continued to my destination without concern.

It was a successful flight, but more stressful than I cared for. Not being able to see the ceiling above you is spooky.

So my personal lesson learned is that I don't care for VFR night flight on moonless nights, and will avoid that in the future.
Click to expand...
Just a little something to chew on…

In many countries that flight would require an instrument rating and IFR certified aircraft.

I’m not saying it’s a bad idea or unsafe… just something to think about.

Then again some countries have made kitchen knives illegal so, carry on.
 
Ed Haywood said:
That's not a defect, that is self preservation. In Florida, we lose aircraft to night VFR takeoffs over water all the time. Venice lost 2 aircraft this year alone. 8 dead.
Click to expand...
One of my last instrument check rides in the Army was a pitch black night with a 2LT. MAP at Hilton Head 090 and 2000. Once we got over the beach I thought, crap there isn't jack out here for references. Sure enough, LT stops his climb and starts a right turn. “You’re descending, level your wings, 090 and 2,000.” He corrected slightly but not more than a few secs later he starts an aggressive descending right turn. He was like “I’m disoriented! You have the controls…f***!”

Only times I’ve (other than myself) flown with pilots that got spatial D was at night. All on check rides as well.
 
Tantalum said:
Thanks for posting this, sounds like you exercised great ADM.
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Thanks for saying that. I feel like my decision to launch was perhaps deficient. I got a case of get-there-itis and failed to recognize the potential for conditions to deteriorate faster than expected. Later that night my departure airfield had a 500 foot ceiling.

Once I was in the air, I feel I made good decisions given the conditions I encountered, and kept myself in safe circumstances with several options out in case things got worse. I've done a lot of VFR XC over the years and am experienced at using the tools available.

This flight did validate my decision to design my panel lighting to keep the cockpit as dark as possible in order to preserve my night vision.
 
I take my Private students out to rural Nevada on moonless nights for their dual night XC. I think part of the purpose of these is to instill a heathy respect, and perhaps mild fear, for just how dark it is out there. Flying at night is not to be taken lightly.
 
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