ChrisK
En-Route
(Really sorry that I don't have pics or video. This was a working flight!)
I've always thought that, while private pilots are taught the basics of night flying during their primary training, if my training was any indication, night proficiency seems to be lacking in many pilots. I had some friends who recently discovered that they needed to fly at night and in each case had to "get night current real quick". I don't begrudge pilots who only want to fly during the day, but flying night VFR is a smooth, beautiful, and sometimes challenging experience that I personally find rewarding as hell (provided no metal is bent!).
Last night I grabbed a pilot friend and decided to finish the 10 full stop landings at a towered airport that are required for the commercial rating. I regret not having pics, but I wanted to relay my experience for critique. For the purpose, I chose CAK - Akron-Canton Airport. This airport is a semi-busy class C, but it is very student friendly as long as you are good on the radio and can follow instructions.
Sunset last night was at 8:45, so Scott and I started our preflight at about 9:15 and started the engine at 9:35, wanting to conduct the entire flight at night. Other than a burnt out taxi light and an inop turn coordinator (not required for this VFR flight but sure would have been nice to have at night), our 180 hp 172N rental seemed eager to fly. She climbed right at Vr and it took some muscle and some trim to keep 'er going at Vy. Fun airplane.
I took the first leg under the hood. Scott is an instrument rated pilot with quite a bit of cross country experience, and CAK was his home airport for a while, so he was a really good choice as a copilot for this trip. Akron approach gave me a practice ILS-5 to start and we were cleared by tower for a stop-and-go. I flew the approach in the donut to minimums (it was QUITE calm) and proceeded to land.
Here's where I expect some conversation.
- It is hard to determine when to flare at night. I'd like to think I got better at it as I executed more landings, but man, it is a struggle. I need some more "fly down the runway" practice. It probably doesn't help that I do not customarily land at airports with runways that wide / long.
- Runways in cities can be hard to see. I mean, of course i knew this already, but it was truly reinforced last night. CAK keeps their lights at low intensity when VMC. Most of the folks landing there are getting sequenced by approach, and the runway is pretty easy to see at night when you're lined up with it. What Scott and I both noticed is that when you're on downwind you can usually see parallel taxi lights and after a few landings we got to where we could pick out two red lights at the approach end of the MALSR array. You can't see the runway or the approach lighting system on downwind at all. I found that much of the time we were turning on faith and really couldn't pick out the runway until we lifted a wing on base.
- Workload can get high at night. I know that this aircraft is neither complex nor high performance. There was no gear, no variable prop, really nothing but the trappings of a basic trainer. CAK tower asked if we wanted to "fly the figure 8" (their two runways are situated 40 degrees apart). I said "ok sounds fun!" It was. I've never done anything like this before. We were taking off on one runway and turning on to a long base for a second runway almost immediately sometimes. We were changing up right pattern and left pattern. I was working my butt off.
- Situational awareness is tough to maintain. At one point they switched runways on us. No big deal, except suddenly our departure runway required that we turn a continuous teardrop on to our next arrival runway (which we flubbed and had to do a 360). I had a yoke mounted iPad mini with Foreflight to which I'd sometimes refer just to make sure we were on the correct downwind for the correct runway, and to verify the direction of the base leg. Throughout the night as we accommodated the various changes I found myself high, low, close, far, and everything in between. Given the difficulty we had spotting the runways, sometimes we'd simply turn base too soon. Not all runways had visual glideslope indicators, so this was excellent practice for the basics of visual approach at night.
Scott took the controls to fly the VOR 27 approach back to 1G5, giving me a short mental break after the CAK landing workout. On the ground we decompressed in the parking lot for a couple hours (and my wife texted me the obligatory "R U DEAD??" at 1:45 AM - we are usually in bed by 10, and I am in the doghouse =/) I think we both learned a lot about flying at night, finding runways, and our capabilities to successfully execute a number of visual approaches. I can understand why the commercial rating requires this sort of practice. 2 hours on the Hobbs and I felt like I just finished a long XC in IMC.
We all need more practice at night!
I've always thought that, while private pilots are taught the basics of night flying during their primary training, if my training was any indication, night proficiency seems to be lacking in many pilots. I had some friends who recently discovered that they needed to fly at night and in each case had to "get night current real quick". I don't begrudge pilots who only want to fly during the day, but flying night VFR is a smooth, beautiful, and sometimes challenging experience that I personally find rewarding as hell (provided no metal is bent!).
Last night I grabbed a pilot friend and decided to finish the 10 full stop landings at a towered airport that are required for the commercial rating. I regret not having pics, but I wanted to relay my experience for critique. For the purpose, I chose CAK - Akron-Canton Airport. This airport is a semi-busy class C, but it is very student friendly as long as you are good on the radio and can follow instructions.
Sunset last night was at 8:45, so Scott and I started our preflight at about 9:15 and started the engine at 9:35, wanting to conduct the entire flight at night. Other than a burnt out taxi light and an inop turn coordinator (not required for this VFR flight but sure would have been nice to have at night), our 180 hp 172N rental seemed eager to fly. She climbed right at Vr and it took some muscle and some trim to keep 'er going at Vy. Fun airplane.
I took the first leg under the hood. Scott is an instrument rated pilot with quite a bit of cross country experience, and CAK was his home airport for a while, so he was a really good choice as a copilot for this trip. Akron approach gave me a practice ILS-5 to start and we were cleared by tower for a stop-and-go. I flew the approach in the donut to minimums (it was QUITE calm) and proceeded to land.
Here's where I expect some conversation.
- It is hard to determine when to flare at night. I'd like to think I got better at it as I executed more landings, but man, it is a struggle. I need some more "fly down the runway" practice. It probably doesn't help that I do not customarily land at airports with runways that wide / long.
- Runways in cities can be hard to see. I mean, of course i knew this already, but it was truly reinforced last night. CAK keeps their lights at low intensity when VMC. Most of the folks landing there are getting sequenced by approach, and the runway is pretty easy to see at night when you're lined up with it. What Scott and I both noticed is that when you're on downwind you can usually see parallel taxi lights and after a few landings we got to where we could pick out two red lights at the approach end of the MALSR array. You can't see the runway or the approach lighting system on downwind at all. I found that much of the time we were turning on faith and really couldn't pick out the runway until we lifted a wing on base.
- Workload can get high at night. I know that this aircraft is neither complex nor high performance. There was no gear, no variable prop, really nothing but the trappings of a basic trainer. CAK tower asked if we wanted to "fly the figure 8" (their two runways are situated 40 degrees apart). I said "ok sounds fun!" It was. I've never done anything like this before. We were taking off on one runway and turning on to a long base for a second runway almost immediately sometimes. We were changing up right pattern and left pattern. I was working my butt off.
- Situational awareness is tough to maintain. At one point they switched runways on us. No big deal, except suddenly our departure runway required that we turn a continuous teardrop on to our next arrival runway (which we flubbed and had to do a 360). I had a yoke mounted iPad mini with Foreflight to which I'd sometimes refer just to make sure we were on the correct downwind for the correct runway, and to verify the direction of the base leg. Throughout the night as we accommodated the various changes I found myself high, low, close, far, and everything in between. Given the difficulty we had spotting the runways, sometimes we'd simply turn base too soon. Not all runways had visual glideslope indicators, so this was excellent practice for the basics of visual approach at night.
Scott took the controls to fly the VOR 27 approach back to 1G5, giving me a short mental break after the CAK landing workout. On the ground we decompressed in the parking lot for a couple hours (and my wife texted me the obligatory "R U DEAD??" at 1:45 AM - we are usually in bed by 10, and I am in the doghouse =/) I think we both learned a lot about flying at night, finding runways, and our capabilities to successfully execute a number of visual approaches. I can understand why the commercial rating requires this sort of practice. 2 hours on the Hobbs and I felt like I just finished a long XC in IMC.
We all need more practice at night!
. That wasn't the point of the flight in ant event.