Night vs IFR

Jim K

Jim K

Final Approach
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Totaling up a logbook page, I find that in the ~8 months since I got my rating, I've accumulated more actual instrument time than I have night time in the 2 years since I started flying, including the required time from ppl.

This is partly because I make an effort to fly approaches in actual at least once a month, whereas I don't do any night flying beyond currency and long trips.

Fact is, as beautiful as it is flying at night, it makes me nervous. The thought of losing an engine and descending into a black hole keeps me from enjoying it, even though the terrain is very friendly around here. I usually don't fly imc lower than 1000' ceilings for the same reason. At least I'll have a minute to pick a spot that way.

Am I alone in this sentiment? I hear many pilots talk about how much they love to fly at night in the smooth, cool air. There's a club member who I've never seen reserve the plane except at night. Not sure whether I should be less scared of night, more scared of imc, or maybe I'm thinking clearly.

And then there's the bugs to clean off...
 
Not uncommon at all. You are simply weighing the risks and making a decision. I even know professional pilots who won't fly single engine at night for that very reason. Even as a CFI I only have about 50 hours of night-time, almost all of which was flying with students to get their required night flying.
 
Jim K said:
Fact is, as beautiful as it is flying at night, it makes me nervous. The thought of losing an engine and descending into a black hole keeps me from enjoying it, even though the terrain is very friendly around here. I usually don't fly imc lower than 1000' ceilings for the same reason. At least I'll have a minute to pick a spot that way.
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Not unreasonable at all. The terrain here is not friendly at all, all tree covered hills, and because of that, I don't night fly or fly over broad areas of LIFR.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Not uncommon at all. You are simply weighing the risks and making a decision. I even know professional pilots who won't fly single engine at night for that very reason. Even as a CFI I only have about 50 hours of night-time, almost all of which was flying with students to get their required night flying.
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Ditto. 100+ night mostly student required.
 
I make a similar choice. For my missions day vfr is my style of flying. It’s a decision of risk mitigation, and everyone falls at different spots on the spectrum of risk acceptance. Some of it is logical some is not. I’ve flown out west over the mountains, had long periods of no options for a decent emergency landing. But even at home I’d prefer not go at night and I’m not a fan of long water crossing either. I live in MI so WI is tempting to go straight but it makes me uncomfortable…

when it comes to night flight my figuring is for my missions I can do it by day…. Fatality risk is 4x at night and for recreational flying I don’t feel like accepting that. I was willing to accept mountain flying risks…

I went and brought my club plane to my home field at night a while back- wasnt shaking in my boots but not my preference. I also think that for 95% of my flying is in my plane a 1947 c140- I don’t have an AI and it’s rather black hole like taking off one direction at home- even as non-IR I like the idea of an AI taking off into the black abyss.

so nope you are not alone in not preferring it.
 
Jim K said:
Totaling up a logbook page, I find that in the ~8 months since I got my rating, I've accumulated more actual instrument time than I have night time in the 2 years since I started flying, including the required time from ppl.

This is partly because I make an effort to fly approaches in actual at least once a month, whereas I don't do any night flying beyond currency and long trips.
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I'm not a fan of night SE either. I'll go get current before a long trip in the winter knowing it may require breaching the threshold of sunset to get home. I'm much more an early morning person and you'll find me launching at dawn.

Also not a hard IFR guy either. Love having the rating and actually enjoy flying approaches in actual but when you throw in the possibility of ice, turbulence and going down to mins I just break out the risk matrix and take a pass. Maybe I'll change later.
 
I think I've less than 30 hours of night flying in 20 years. Doesn't much bother me, this stuff is dangerous no matter how you cut it. I just don't have that much reason to do it. I did one night flight last year because the person I was going to see wasn't available in the day time. I've started to do winter flight just to get currency during the rare good weather. Night flying is hard to do in the summer, because it gets dark so late.
 
Jim K said:
Totaling up a logbook page, I find that in the ~8 months since I got my rating, I've accumulated more actual instrument time than I have night time in the 2 years since I started flying, including the required time from ppl.

This is partly because I make an effort to fly approaches in actual at least once a month, whereas I don't do any night flying beyond currency and long trips.

Fact is, as beautiful as it is flying at night, it makes me nervous. The thought of losing an engine and descending into a black hole keeps me from enjoying it, even though the terrain is very friendly around here. I usually don't fly imc lower than 1000' ceilings for the same reason. At least I'll have a minute to pick a spot that way.

Am I alone in this sentiment? I hear many pilots talk about how much they love to fly at night in the smooth, cool air. There's a club member who I've never seen reserve the plane except at night. Not sure whether I should be less scared of night, more scared of imc, or maybe I'm thinking clearly.

And then there's the bugs to clean off...
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You are following your own risk tolerance, which is exactly as it should be. Night does not bother me, but flying over dense metropolitan areas does. Flying a small plane itself is a risk, and I know of individuals who gave up flying because they perceived it as too risky. I used to routinely fly in the mountainous west at night. Some might consider that too risky. I knew the terrain well enough to accept the risk. One advantage of flying at night is that the recency experience also counts for day time.
 
Unless it’s for work I avoid nighttime and even then it’s under NVGs so it’s not the same. Unless I really have to be somewhere I just don’t fly at night. Got maybe only 100 hrs personal flying at night.

I’d say it’s the same for hard IFR as well. When you’re flying XC and you listen to AWOSs below with a 300 ft ceiling, you know the odds of pulling off a SE failure are slim.

I’ll do both types of flying when I have to but that doesn’t mean I’m a little uneasy. I have confidence in my engine and I know chances are it won’t fail but that doesn’t mean the what if’s aren’t going through my mind.
 
If you don’t fly day IFR when ceilings are less than 1000 agl, you basically are comparing day marginal VFR to night VFR.
 
Depends on the area and how dark of a night it is. In some cases, having to do an emergency landing at night isn't going to be much worse than doing it during the daytime. I do like now that I am instrument rating that I can follow the instrument procedures which will usually keep me away from unseen terrain/obstacles.
 
I tend to avoid this topic, mostly because root cause is rather complicated and people like to cherry pick.
By far if you look at NTSB reports and night flying, you find that pilots make many more mistakes. Pick your cause why, but pilots ef up a lot more at night.

Then also wonder this. How does the engine of your plane know if it is night, over a city, over a mountain or water?

About 1/3 of my flying is at night. I prefer it generally, but harder now because of work schedule.

Tim

Sent from my HD1907 using Tapatalk
 
As I have gotten older (58) I have to admit that I don't see as well at night - driving or flying. I just passed my 2nd class medical - barely. My left eye gave me fits on the eye exam. No problem seeing 20/20 with both eyes, but definitely an issue with the one eye.

I made the decision a few years ago that I might START a flight at night or FINISH it at night, but I was not going to start and finish a night cross country in a SEL piston. I use my airplane for business travel and especially in the winter time it is hard to finish every flight in the daytime.

One thing that you can do when flying at night is to fly the highest altitude that your airplane and you can comfortably handle. Also, route your flight plan over as many airports as possible. It adds very little time to the flight and combined with high altitude gives you a better chance of making an airport landing and the added advantage of flying an approach if need be.

I definitely think that flying direct at night is adding unnecessary risk to an already "riskier" trip than daylight flying.
 
tspear said:
How does the engine of your plane know if it is night, over a city, over a mountain or water?
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It doesn't, but I sure as heck will if I'm forced to pick a spot.
Stephen Shore said:
One thing that you can do when flying at night is to fly the highest altitude that your airplane and you can comfortably handle. Also, route your flight plan over as many airports as possible. It adds very little time to the flight and combined with high altitude gives you a better chance of making an airport landing
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Agreed. I often fly over the interstate at night. Interstates aren't my favorite option during the day, but at night it beats going into a dark field.
flyingron said:
In some cases, having to do an emergency landing at night isn't going to be much worse than doing it during the daytime.
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I need to get out and fly on a bright full moon night. I'm not sure that I ever have. Of course that never aligns with a night i actually have reason to go somewhere, and when it does, it's overcast.

I'm glad to hear others have similar reservations about flying at night and low night hours. I thought maybe I was being overly nervous about it.
 
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I'm about 5% of my hours at night. I try to get my 3 landings in every three months just in case I need to fly at night. I stick to areas I know well. 44 hours out of about 800 total. I'm much more nervous about flying over water or mountains.
 
I got my first encounter with black hole illusion on a recent night flight. We were flying over a city and could see an overcast layer over it. Once passing it, we turned to continue on the flight plan and then... total blackness. No stars, no ground lights, nothing. We were not in the clouds either. I am instrument rated but still found it very uncomfortable feeling. We could see the ground again in a couple of minutes after that.
 
MacFlier said:
I got my first encounter with black hole illusion on a recent night flight. We were flying over a city and could see an overcast layer over it. Once passing it, we turned to continue on the flight plan and then... total blackness. No stars, no ground lights, nothing. We were not in the clouds either. I am instrument rated but still found it very uncomfortable feeling. We could see the ground again in a couple of minutes after that.
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That's much creepier than IMC in my opinion.
 
I love flying at night. Engine doesn't know where it is at or what it is over, and if it's my time it's my time.

I have crossed Lake Michigan in SEL at the fattest point, at night, in IMC, and will continue to do so if that's what the schedule calls for.

I can't/won't live life being being afraid of what might never happen.
 
I love flying at night. Over the desert on a moonless night it feels surreal, like you're in space

The mission just doesn't call for it much. In the summer it gets dark so late that I'm rarely arriving at proper evening time (10pm, etc). In the winter I log a couple night hours here and there but still it's not something the mission often calls for
 
I don't have any apprehension about flying at night. My night hours are much lower than instrument or day hours, but not based on fear or anxiety. Moreso, flying at night doesn't fit my schedule most of the time and those looking to go flying for fun with me usaually want to do it during the day. Like EdFred above, I've also done the Lake Michigan crossing in a single, but I tend to climb pretty high to lower the distance of not being able to glide to one shore or the other.
 
I flew a lot of SE night in Alaska over terrain most folks would not fly over in daylight. Actually night flying started in mid October and was over by early February. Schedules were adjusted to start later in the morning and ended earlier than summer schedules, so for a long time I did not have much night flight time.

Then I moved to civilization where it was easier to get night time. I Loved flying at night. The air is usually smoother and cooler. The radios are usually a whole lot less congested. Here in the SW visibility is usually 99+, so airports are easier to see at night. Black hole illusions are common, just something to get used to.

I guess I should add that after moving to NM that just about all flying day and night was ME.
 
I'm pretty sure I have more night time (including NVG) than day time flown.

When I had 300 hours, 200 of it was night. I was a full time student and had two jobs, so the only time available was at night!

I remember meeting guys who were counting up night landings because they didn't have enough night time for their ATP airplane. That blew me away...

Yep, I'd rather fly IMC day than night unaided in a single engine airplane.
 
Interesting discussion. I love flying in both night and IMC. In total time, I actually have a lot more night than IMC actual. I have more simulated IMC than night. Most of my mission is flying long XC (600nm+) which sometimes end at night. In the last 12 months, actual vs night times are about equal. It’s probably mostly due to me making a more concentrated effort to get into actual and shoot real approaches.

For me as a flat lander from Illinois, IMC scares me more. My personal minimums for IMC vary greatly based upon the equipment I’m flying. The basic steam panel single-axis AP Arrow I fly has very high minimums, as opposed to the glass panel stuff. My only minimums for night VFR are terrain related - No mountains and I need to know what’s under me (trees vs roads vs water vs fields).
 
EdFred said:
I love flying at night. Engine doesn't know where it is at or what it is over, and if it's my time it's my time.

I have crossed Lake Michigan in SEL at the fattest point, at night, in IMC, and will continue to do so if that's what the schedule calls for.

I can't/won't live life being being afraid of what might never happen.
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Great thing about freedom, that is your choice! Your personal risk tolerance threshold is higher than most. I don't have a problem with that, as long as you (and anyone with you) understand and acknowledge the risk.

My threshold is quite a bit lower. I've got a lot more to do in this life, and I don't have any intention of dying in a plane crash if I can help it. I do my best to understand the risks and mitigate them where I can. I won't say I won't fly at night, I obviously have. But I may alter plans or routes to reduce said risks. Likewise with crossing Lake Michigan, the trip around the south side on most of my trips doesn't add more than 30-45 minutes of flight time and is well within range.

Same with IMC. Most leisure pilots don't fly IFR enough to stay truly proficient if they are honest with themselves. Gentlemen's IFR (MVFR) is not an unreasonable personal minimum for most, especially single engine. Just because I flew 6 approaches (and holds) on a simulator 24 weeks ago does not mean I have any business flying an ILS to minimums at night. What's legal, isn't always safe...and vice versa.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Great thing about freedom, that is your choice! Your personal risk tolerance threshold is higher than most. I don't have a problem with that, as long as you (and anyone with you) understand and acknowledge the risk.

My threshold is quite a bit lower. I've got a lot more to do in this life, and I don't have any intention of dying in a plane crash if I can help it. I do my best to understand the risks and mitigate them where I can. I won't say I won't fly at night, I obviously have. But I may alter plans or routes to reduce said risks. Likewise with crossing Lake Michigan, the trip around the south side on most of my trips doesn't add more than 30-45 minutes of flight time and is well within range.

Same with IMC. Most leisure pilots don't fly IFR enough to stay truly proficient if they are honest with themselves. Gentlemen's IFR (MVFR) is not an unreasonable personal minimum for most, especially single engine. Just because I flew 6 approaches (and holds) on a simulator 24 weeks ago does not mean I have any business flying an ILS to minimums at night. What's legal, isn't always safe...and vice versa.
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Amount of life left, or things you ant to do has very little to do with risk tolerance. If it did, kids would never be willing to go off to war when the elders send them.

Tim
 
tspear said:
Amount of life left, or things you ant to do has very little to do with risk tolerance. If it did, kids would never be willing to go off to war when the elders send them.

Tim
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I agree. Risk tolerance is based on personal choice. My level of risk tolerance is based on my personal choices. Your mileage may vary.
 
midwestpa24 said:
I agree. Risk tolerance is based on personal choice. My level of risk tolerance is based on my personal choices. Your mileage may vary.
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That is what I figured, but not how your post came across. :)

Cheers, isn't the English language wonderfully vague?

Tim
 
"The airplane doesn't know that it's night time."
 
eman1200 said:
is there more risk? I dunno, I guess I'm in the dark on this one.
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I’d say inherent risk is the same. IMC and night brings fewer tools for risk management (I.e. controls) such as eyes and the vestibular system. Some adjust which tools they use - more engines, better panels / autopilots… etc.
 
I don't fly at night often because of the risks, but when I do I plan it around a full moon. One of my high school classmates died in a night fuel exhaustion crash into a hill that was surrounded by flat ground and would have been a non-event had it been in the daytime...
 
For those in the "no/limited night" camp, I wonder how much synthetic vision would tilt your decision process.
 
eman1200 said:
is there more risk? I dunno, I guess I'm in the dark on this one.
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Depends on how you interpret risk. Is there more risk of an engine failure at night or over open water? Not at all. As several have pointed out, the airplane doesn't know if its dark. So the probability of failure is the same. However, what is the possibility of injury or death as a result of an engine failure? I would say its obviously higher than a failure during day VFR over open country. So in the unlikely event of a failure, your "risk" of injury is higher.

Each person can decide their own tolerance for risk. Guys flying Bush in Alaska, recognize the risk inherent in that operation, and usually try to take measures to mitigate where they can. Same as guys that perform low level aerobatics on the weekends at airshows. As long as you and, as I said before, anyone with you acknowledges and accepts the risk, I don't see a problem with that. What I don't like to see is people doing things ignorant of the risk. When I was younger, I'll admit I did a lot more of that. There's lots of things I've done in the past that I look back and think how could I have been that stupid, or how lucky am I to have survived that. Even have a few scars to prove it.
 
asicer said:
For those in the "no/limited night" camp, I wonder how much synthetic vision would tilt your decision process.
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Synthetic vision or FLIR/Night vision? Synthetic vision, not a factor in my decision making process for night. It doesn't show the fields, powerlines, trees, etc., things that would make a difference in survival in an off airport landing.
 
kaiser said:
I’d say inherent risk is the same. IMC and night brings fewer tools for risk management (I.e. controls) such as eyes and the vestibular system. Some adjust which tools they use - more engines, better panels / autopilots… etc.
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midwestpa24 said:
Depends on how you interpret risk. Is there more risk of an engine failure at night or over open water? Not at all. As several have pointed out, the airplane doesn't know if its dark. So the probability of failure is the same. However, what is the possibility of injury or death as a result of an engine failure? I would say its obviously higher than a failure during day VFR over open country. So in the unlikely event of a failure, your "risk" of injury is higher.

Each person can decide their own tolerance for risk. Guys flying Bush in Alaska, recognize the risk inherent in that operation, and usually try to take measures to mitigate where they can. Same as guys that perform low level aerobatics on the weekends at airshows. As long as you and, as I said before, anyone with you acknowledges and accepts the risk, I don't see a problem with that. What I don't like to see is people doing things ignorant of the risk. When I was younger, I'll admit I did a lot more of that. There's lots of things I've done in the past that I look back and think how could I have been that stupid, or how lucky am I to have survived that. Even have a few scars to prove it.
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I was, shockingly, not being serious with my reply.

if you fly long enough at night wondering where the sun is, it'll eventually dawn on you.
 
asicer said:
For those in the "no/limited night" camp, I wonder how much synthetic vision would tilt your decision process.
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SVT is good for avoiding plowing into a mountain but simple planning will prevent that anyway.

SVT for an engine out scenario will be of little value. I’ve flown SVT in G500, G1000 and G1000 NXI and they just don’t have enough detail to find a suitable off airport landing area. Even the NXI while it has greater detail than the basic 500 / 1000, it just doesn’t beat actually seeing the terrain. NVIS / FLIR is the best option.
 
In most applications the Garmin syn viz, makes a little difference but not as much as you might hope. And the newer ones do show powerlines and other obstructions.

however if you do use it right, it can safely bring you down 0/0. I have made dozens of crossings across the Rockies at night and in IMC in a SEP. my mitigation strategy was always to land at an airport in an emergency. Some tricks: I flew a Mirage in the flight levels, so the glide range was incredible. Flew airways or GPS waypoints that followed airports and VORs which are usually conveniently located along flatter areas. I would politely decline ATCs direct routing. I also had synthetic vision, and when it became available, an iPad with the glide range rings set up. That technique had me always in glide range of an airport from Denver all the way to Salt Lake City. As long as you know the glide characteristics of your plane, a dead stick landing with Syn Viz is pretty easy. Landing off field at night, however, would not be awesome with that terrain.

Otherwise, I would not really make it a habit of doing that trip IMC or at night. Following large roads also gives you some options, if they are not crowded, but certainly obstruction clearance is not guaranteed.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Great thing about freedom, that is your choice! Your personal risk tolerance threshold is higher than most. I don't have a problem with that, as long as you (and anyone with you) understand and acknowledge the risk.

My threshold is quite a bit lower. I've got a lot more to do in this life, and I don't have any intention of dying in a plane crash if I can help it. I do my best to understand the risks and mitigate them where I can. I won't say I won't fly at night, I obviously have. But I may alter plans or routes to reduce said risks. Likewise with crossing Lake Michigan, the trip around the south side on most of my trips doesn't add more than 30-45 minutes of flight time and is well within range.

Same with IMC. Most leisure pilots don't fly IFR enough to stay truly proficient if they are honest with themselves. Gentlemen's IFR (MVFR) is not an unreasonable personal minimum for most, especially single engine. Just because I flew 6 approaches (and holds) on a simulator 24 weeks ago does not mean I have any business flying an ILS to minimums at night. What's legal, isn't always safe...and vice versa.
Click to expand...

Going south adds an hour each way to my Central WI destination. "KELSI Anyone?" Going north adds even more.
 
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