How do you fly at night without IR
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How do you fly at night without IR
I know this may sound like a daft question as though i dont have my ppl, but i have always wondered how someone with ppl + night rating can fly at night with an ordinary aircraft like a cessna 152 etc. I can see how they can do it with IR equipment etc, but cant workout in my head how you would fly and navigate in the dark with only ordinary instruments.
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I know my question my sound daft, im not qualified and it was just bugging me so had to ask.
Got any information on that Mark I Eyeball i can read about? Sounds interesting!
Got any information on that Mark I Eyeball i can read about? Sounds interesting!
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haha ahh right, i get it. I thought he was referring to a dial in the aircraft. lol.
But if your flying at night, looking out the window in an area you are not familiar with wont give you a position, from up there wont it just all look like street lights?
and what if you aint got a gps? :P
But if your flying at night, looking out the window in an area you are not familiar with wont give you a position, from up there wont it just all look like street lights?
and what if you aint got a gps? :P
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But if your flying at night, looking out the window in an area you are not familiar with wont give you a position, from up there wont it just all look like street lights?
There are several other ways you know where you are.
(1) You know where you were, you know which direction you've been flying in, you know how long you've been flying, you know the forecast wind, so you can estimate where you are. This works just as well at night as during the day.
(2) You can use ground-based radio navigation aids, such as VOR, NDB, DME.
(3) You can use a ground-based radio navigation aid known as an air traffic controller looking at a radar screen (if you're lucky enough to find one willing to talk to you).
(4) You can call up a local airport on the radio and get a radio direction finding bearing from them; two of these and you're pinpointed.
(5) You can call up on the emergency frequency and get told where you are via several RDF bearings.
Some of these work better than others at various times in various conditions. Nobody sensible relies totally on just one, not even GPS, not even during the day.
And just looking out of the window does sometimes work:
I did one of my IMCR lessons at night. Eventually I said I'd had enough and took the goggles off. "We're at such-and-such," I told the instructor, within a second or so of looking out of the window and recognising the layout of street lights. I navigated home by looking out of the window and recognising where I was.
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Now that we are done with the standard "retired RAF navigator" replies 
here is mine:
The short answer is that you cannot, because a properly dark night is obviously pitch black and is thus the same as solid IMC. And if you fly into solid IMC on such a night, you won't be aware of it, except by seeing the halo around your wingtip lights.
The reason why you can do a plain PPL, add the night qualification, and legally fly around at night, without instrument navigation and aircraft control capability, is because 99% of such pilots do their damnest to log "night time" starting with 30 minutes and 0.1 second after official sunset and then they fly a few circuits, or a short flight among heavily lit ground features It's nowhere near dark then. If these people went off in the middle of Africa, or whatever, on a moonless night, they would end up doing a Kennedy.
In the FAA system, to carry passengers at night you need to do the 3+3 after sunset + 1hr, which is a lot darker than sunset + 30mins which is the European system.
Night VFR, or whatever you call it, is an artefact of the ICAO system and goes back some decades. Nobody in their right mind would today propose a privilege for unrestricted night flight without some instrument capability (not necessarily a full IR which involves a huge amount of procedural flying, not to mention a vast amount of theoretical ground school garbage, which is not related to operating visually between airports with lighting and in VMC conditions).
That's because you recognised your local area
Makes it kind of easier
If going to places for real, there is no recognition, other than hoping to match some illuminated shapes against the city outlines on the map and hope they correspond to the illuminated shapes.
In practice one navigates everywhere with a GPS, so nav is easy nowadays. But you still need instrument flight ability to fly on real dark nights.
here is mine:
cant workout in my head how you would fly and navigate in the dark with only ordinary instruments.
The reason why you can do a plain PPL, add the night qualification, and legally fly around at night, without instrument navigation and aircraft control capability, is because 99% of such pilots do their damnest to log "night time" starting with 30 minutes and 0.1 second after official sunset and then they fly a few circuits, or a short flight among heavily lit ground features
It's nowhere near dark then. If these people went off in the middle of Africa, or whatever, on a moonless night, they would end up doing a Kennedy.In the FAA system, to carry passengers at night you need to do the 3+3 after sunset + 1hr, which is a lot darker than sunset + 30mins which is the European system.
Night VFR, or whatever you call it, is an artefact of the ICAO system and goes back some decades. Nobody in their right mind would today propose a privilege for unrestricted night flight without some instrument capability (not necessarily a full IR which involves a huge amount of procedural flying, not to mention a vast amount of theoretical ground school garbage, which is not related to operating visually between airports with lighting and in VMC conditions).
"We're at such-and-such," I told the instructor, within a second or so of looking out of the window and recognising the layout of street lights. I navigated home by looking out of the window and recognising where I was.
Makes it kind of easier
If going to places for real, there is no recognition, other than hoping to match some illuminated shapes against the city outlines on the map and hope they correspond to the illuminated shapes.
In practice one navigates everywhere with a GPS, so nav is easy nowadays. But you still need instrument flight ability to fly on real dark nights.
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I don't see how an instrument rating and night flying are related, unless at night, you're flying out of visual reference to the ground, which is extremely similar to flying out of visual reference to the ground - but it's darker.
The skills required to get an IR can be handy if you're VFRing your way along at night, and you blunder into a cloud you did not see, that's fairly easy to do. Other than that, navigation is navigation. seeing the ground is just a bonus (and requirement for VFR flying). I can assure you that a lot of night flying happens in places where yellow splodges are few and far between. Back to the chart, stopwatch, and radio nav aids you might have.
Some VFR flying at night, no matter how good the visibility, is just really challenging. Not so much as figuring out where you are going, but simply figuring out which way is up. JFK jr's accident is an excellent case study in this.
That's part of the judgement in knowing if you, and your aircraft, are correctly equipped, and functioning well enough to carry out the intended flight safely, conditions considered. Night is one of many factors which would affect such a decision.
The skills required to get an IR can be handy if you're VFRing your way along at night, and you blunder into a cloud you did not see, that's fairly easy to do. Other than that, navigation is navigation. seeing the ground is just a bonus (and requirement for VFR flying). I can assure you that a lot of night flying happens in places where yellow splodges are few and far between. Back to the chart, stopwatch, and radio nav aids you might have.
Some VFR flying at night, no matter how good the visibility, is just really challenging. Not so much as figuring out where you are going, but simply figuring out which way is up. JFK jr's accident is an excellent case study in this.
That's part of the judgement in knowing if you, and your aircraft, are correctly equipped, and functioning well enough to carry out the intended flight safely, conditions considered. Night is one of many factors which would affect such a decision.
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Interesting
I've always wondered about this. I have a NR but no IMC. I was always told never to fly at night purposely, it's only ever for emergency.
The strange thing is, if you aren't current then flying at night would be pretty dangerous. So a NR for emergency seems fairly dangerous to me.
I've thought about going out at night a few times, to get more experience using GPS for navigation.
I think the above post is interesting because there is no TAF for how dark it's going to be that night. Presumably you look for broken clouds and bright moon ? CAVOK becomes even more important at night ?
Do any PPL (non IR/IMC) pilots regularly fly at night ?
The strange thing is, if you aren't current then flying at night would be pretty dangerous. So a NR for emergency seems fairly dangerous to me.
I've thought about going out at night a few times, to get more experience using GPS for navigation.
I think the above post is interesting because there is no TAF for how dark it's going to be that night. Presumably you look for broken clouds and bright moon ? CAVOK becomes even more important at night ?
Do any PPL (non IR/IMC) pilots regularly fly at night ?
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I tend to go with 10540s thoughts on this. There is night and there is night!
There is a world of difference flying around the circuit 30 minutes after sunset on a clear full moon " night " and flying a long cross country over mountains with few lights below, pitch black and clouds of differing variety and coverage coming onto you with little warning.
Real night flying is a nonsense without instrument proficiency and instrument navigation skills.
I also think it is a nonsense to offer the qualification to VFR only pilots.
It should have been part of or an addition to the IMCR.
Pace
There is a world of difference flying around the circuit 30 minutes after sunset on a clear full moon " night " and flying a long cross country over mountains with few lights below, pitch black and clouds of differing variety and coverage coming onto you with little warning.
Real night flying is a nonsense without instrument proficiency and instrument navigation skills.
I also think it is a nonsense to offer the qualification to VFR only pilots.
It should have been part of or an addition to the IMCR.
Pace
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Night flying is similar to day flying in that there are various stages of difficulty. Better, more experienced, pilots can manage flying in cloud at night or over somewhere remote on a moonless night ... I am not one of them! I'll only go up at night if I know there are little, if any, clouds at the altitude I'll be at. And as I fly around the southeast of England I know there will be sufficient street lighting to keep me upright.
What is fun about night flying is that you need to re-learn your reference points. Radio masts become a lot more relevant and the notam that such and such a mast is out of service that you might not really take much notice of during the day becomes of interest when flying at night. Similarly other ground features that you might use a lot flying day VFR (for instance Bewl water) can become completely invisible and therefore of no use to you at night.
Spotting other aircraft at night is much easier than during the day and they can look a lot closer than they actually are. And you need to make sure you know how to use the cockpit lighting and have a good torch strapped to your head as often the instrument lighting in a typical spamcan leaves a lot to be desired.
What is fun about night flying is that you need to re-learn your reference points. Radio masts become a lot more relevant and the notam that such and such a mast is out of service that you might not really take much notice of during the day becomes of interest when flying at night. Similarly other ground features that you might use a lot flying day VFR (for instance Bewl water) can become completely invisible and therefore of no use to you at night.
Spotting other aircraft at night is much easier than during the day and they can look a lot closer than they actually are. And you need to make sure you know how to use the cockpit lighting and have a good torch strapped to your head as often the instrument lighting in a typical spamcan leaves a lot to be desired.
but cant workout in my head how you would fly and navigate in the dark
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I don't fly much at night because you have no escape route for an engine failure.
In other phases of flight you have an escape route e.g. ditching -> life raft, etc. Flying over forests isn't much better but there are few totally continuous ones in Europe. Mountains tend to have lots of valleys.
Flying at night, you have nowt. Well, you could quickly put on your $5000 3rd-gen NVGs which you illegally imported from the USA
In other phases of flight you have an escape route e.g. ditching -> life raft, etc. Flying over forests isn't much better but there are few totally continuous ones in Europe. Mountains tend to have lots of valleys.
Flying at night, you have nowt. Well, you could quickly put on your $5000 3rd-gen NVGs which you illegally imported from the USA
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Whopity
I hope you were not in a 152 at the time 
I too can remember flying up the edge of Paris at 36K Spectacular sight then flying another 50 miles and a totally different picture!
For the IFR pilot it makes little difference, the spectacular sights of Paris or London are a bonus but for the VFR pilot the spectacular sights can quickly change to a nightmare!
Pace
Go night flying with someone on a cross country and see for yourself. I can recall one night seeing London, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Amsterdam all at the same time from 35,000 feet over Litchfield.
I too can remember flying up the edge of Paris at 36K Spectacular sight then flying another 50 miles and a totally different picture!
For the IFR pilot it makes little difference, the spectacular sights of Paris or London are a bonus but for the VFR pilot the spectacular sights can quickly change to a nightmare!
Pace
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Go night flying with someone on a cross country and see for yourself. I can recall one night seeing London, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Amsterdam all at the same time from 35,000 feet over Litchfield.
An American flight safety organization did a study on night flying accidents. Their sobering conclusion is that a non instrument rated PPL flying a single engine aircraft is up to 25 times more likely to have a fatal accident on a cross country flight as compared to the same trip flown in daylight. Inadvertent flight into IMC and the resultant loss of control figures much more prominently in night flight accidents. My personal opinion is that a IMC or IR rating should be a prerequisite for night flying. In any case flying at night without recognizing and ameliorating the extra risks is IMO very foolish.....yet also very common.
A thought or three from somebody who had a night qualification for about a decade before having an instrument qualification, and used it occasionally although not very often.
- In terms of engine failure options, there's not a lot of difference between the dangers of IMC or night flying with a single engine; if the engine coughs one gives you a poor view of the ground, the other will eventually give you a hopefully good view, but possibly too late to do much with it. Doing either is a calculated risk.
- Night VFR navigation is not difficult, landmarks are different but easily seen, reduced turbulence makes flying accurately easily, radio nav is learned by all of us to some extent whether using GPS or older technologies, and is very useful but not utterly vital.
- If you lose a horizon at night, you do want to be able to use the AI to accurately hold a course. This skill is in the PPL, rather more in the night rating.
- The main part of the IMC and IR courses is flying holds and approaches. This is not required for night VFR.
G
- In terms of engine failure options, there's not a lot of difference between the dangers of IMC or night flying with a single engine; if the engine coughs one gives you a poor view of the ground, the other will eventually give you a hopefully good view, but possibly too late to do much with it. Doing either is a calculated risk.
- Night VFR navigation is not difficult, landmarks are different but easily seen, reduced turbulence makes flying accurately easily, radio nav is learned by all of us to some extent whether using GPS or older technologies, and is very useful but not utterly vital.
- If you lose a horizon at night, you do want to be able to use the AI to accurately hold a course. This skill is in the PPL, rather more in the night rating.
- The main part of the IMC and IR courses is flying holds and approaches. This is not required for night VFR.
G
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Like the MK1 eyeball comment
As a low hour pilot with a night rating, i would say as much as I like night flying I would definately not be considering a solo cross country in the pitch black, at least definately not in the highlands of scotland.
I would however be happy arriving back at Inverness at dusk before it is pitch black in good VMC where there is no or very little chance of going inadvertantly IMC.
Combined with a current instrument qual and a suitable aircraft for the conditions I expect to fly in then I would possibly consider it. But as I dont have these yet, Its the circuit and immediate local area for me for night flying
As a low hour pilot with a night rating, i would say as much as I like night flying I would definately not be considering a solo cross country in the pitch black, at least definately not in the highlands of scotland.
I would however be happy arriving back at Inverness at dusk before it is pitch black in good VMC where there is no or very little chance of going inadvertantly IMC.
Combined with a current instrument qual and a suitable aircraft for the conditions I expect to fly in then I would possibly consider it. But as I dont have these yet, Its the circuit and immediate local area for me for night flying
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It all comes down to sensibilitys again. The PPL has a large amount of trust built into it, no one is going to stop you flying below your calculated MSA, no one is going to stop you flying when the Viz limits are below what you are legally allowed to fly in. It comes down to the fact that if you are operating outide of what you have qualified for, you A) stand a good chance of hurting yourself, and B) getting busted for it.
I personally did my night rating along with my PPL in the USA, it is much better catered for over there with pilot controlled lighting at most airports etc. The other distinct advantage is that Florida is hard to get lost in, and the weather is normally pretty clear. I accrued approximatly 20 Hrs of night flying, and found it great fun, and a nicely challenging difference to day VFR. Would I be as comfortable flying night solo in this country? Doubtful, much more terrain & weather to fly into, and airports that make it very difficult to do night flying in the first place.
Night VFR is just as safe as day VFR if planned correctly and flown sensibly in my humble opinion
I personally did my night rating along with my PPL in the USA, it is much better catered for over there with pilot controlled lighting at most airports etc. The other distinct advantage is that Florida is hard to get lost in, and the weather is normally pretty clear. I accrued approximatly 20 Hrs of night flying, and found it great fun, and a nicely challenging difference to day VFR. Would I be as comfortable flying night solo in this country? Doubtful, much more terrain & weather to fly into, and airports that make it very difficult to do night flying in the first place.
Night VFR is just as safe as day VFR if planned correctly and flown sensibly in my humble opinion