Night currency

ircphoenix

En-Route
Joined
Feb 29, 2016
Messages
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Location
Redondo Beach, CA
Display Name
ircphoenix
Home Airfield
KTOA
Flying at night is the bestest.

Just did a few turns in the pattern. I thought you all should know.

Also, if you look up the liveatc audio, first, it doesn't work. Second, if it did, you'd hear me saying all kinds of non-standard things, just because I know someone who was listening at home and not a pilot was yelling THAT'S NOT HOW YOU DO THAT!
 
Love night flying. Sadly I don't do enough of it. However, with the time change this weekend I plan getting up more at night.
 
I did an unplanned night flight yesterday. Couple of first timers at Half Moon Bay decided a really good $100 burger sounded very nice. It was a perfect flying day (and night).

I do maintain night and instrument currency through summer for CAP, so no problem.

The only potential issue was a light radiation mist forming after sunset. It became fog hours later, but you could tell it was coming. ASOS reported few at 300, but clouds were offshore. Easy VFR departure, but I might have been a bit nervous if I wasn't instrument current.
 
I did an unplanned night flight yesterday. Couple of first timers at Half Moon Bay decided a really good $100 burger sounded very nice. It was a perfect flying day (and night).

I do maintain night and instrument currency through summer for CAP, so no problem.

The only potential issue was a light radiation mist forming after sunset. It became fog hours later, but you could tell it was coming. ASOS reported few at 300, but clouds were offshore. Easy VFR departure, but I might have been a bit nervous if I wasn't instrument current.

Yeah. It socked in really quickly down here too, but that wasn't till about 3 hours after I was done with my turns in the pattern. Surprised the hell out of me when I looked outside around 11pm and I couldn't see past the streetlight at the curb.
 
2 weeks ago I did 10hrs non stop. 6 hrs of night but no night take off or landing on that particular flight. interesting flight it was. 5,100 miles
 
Was doing my night currency ,blew a tire on landing,after FBO was closed at a non towered airport. Guess I should stick to bigger airports.
 
I had to knock out my night cross-country in preparation for the commercial checkride on Friday night (after all these years and 600 some hours, I couldn't find a single flight that qualified...:confused:). Weather was perfect for a change so I went from Reno to Klamath Falls and back. Talk about being spookey, hardly any lights out there and nothing but darkness all around. At least the comforting part was knowing I was running parallel to the mountains along the valley so I had a place to go if the fan stopped.

Finally verified all the lights work on the panel for the most part... :)

I remember that I do love flying at night, just not so much east-west across the mountains.

Brian

IMG_6673.JPG
 
^Yes, very spooky over mountains. On my recent night flight I was 2500' MSL over Chino Hills (highest point, about 1600' and not really in my flight path), and that made my skin crawl. You put trust in the charts, GPS and your altimeter, but that inky blackness beneath, on a moonless night, is unsettling. Much more comforting to be over the urban basin with lots of city lights.
 
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