Night landings

mandm

mandm

Avionics Upgrade
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Michael
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I’ve been having issues with my night landings lately, maybe as I’m more comfortable with the basics, I’m noticing the other stuff more closely. I don’t think I ever had issues with night landings before but maybe I’m not doing as many take offs and landings as before and they are becoming rusty? I’ve been focusing on my day time landings, touching down on the mains and holding off the nose for a bit for aerodynamic braking and to baby my nose wheel down to the ground. But sometimes I do it wrong and you feel the nose wheel just drop down.

Now with the night time landings, as I’m slowing down the aircraft, the nose pitches up in the Arrow and you cannot see ahead, so I’m basically relying on looking out the sides and judging (guessing) my height, and I don’t like this because I don’t really know how high I am off the ground. Last night, a crosswind gust hit me and I opted for a go around. I was able to land on the second try, I got the mains down good but the flare of the nose wheel dropped a bit more than I’d like it to.

Any tips or suggestions for perfecting night landings?
 
Are you saying the nose pitches higher in your night landings than in your day landings?
 
I’d say don’t over do something to be perfect and end up being unsafe.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Are you saying the nose pitches higher in your night landings than in your day landings?
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I haven’t paid attention to that in particular (day vs night AOA), but in the Arrow, you lose visibility forward in slow flight. Maybe I’m focusing too much on my airspeed on the new avionics, I’m not sure. I start to get minimum airspeed alerts around 88mph, although my stall speeds are 63/69mph.
 
Sounds like you might be a bit too low in the seat. Also, a bit of extra speed might be a good thing for night landings.

That aside, it's no different to a day landing, once you're that close to the ground. Flare and use your peripheral vision, except you'll be looking for the red/green position light reflections off the runway.
 
TCABM said:
I would suggest spending time with a CFI who can help with avionics transitions so they can get first hand observation of what’s happening and apply the appropriate learning intervention for you.
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What did I miss? What do avionics have to do with night landings?
 
The obvious answer is an instructor to see what's going on. But just off the top of my head (and dealing regularly with pilots' landing issues)...

As mentioned, the airplane has no idea if it's day or night. If you have a higher pitch attitude, it may be a lower seat or you are inadvertently pitching up more because of an unconscious concern for the ground you can't see as well as daytime. Basic and often unconscious overcorrection.

You might also be used to looking waaaaay down the end of the runway, somehing else that has less visibility at night. I know people talk about looking at the far end of the runway all the time, but I've never quite understood how looking 2 miles away when landing on a 12,000' runway helps one land a light single. Try closer; maybe between 1500-2000'. I like the concept they teach for motorcycles - 12 car lengths allows the use of both direct vision for what's a head and peripheral vision for things closer in.

Looking waaaaaay down and the attendant loss of peripheral vision interferes with the third biggie. When the nose begins to cover the runway ahead, we need to use our peripheral vision (or Jason Miller's "Lindbergh reference") to gauge both vertical and lateral runway position.
 
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eman1200 said:
What did I miss? What do avionics have to do with night landings?
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midlifeflyer said:
Screen too bright?
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IIRC, the OP has a new all glass panel and we went thru a similar routine related to navigator and autopilot use.

In and of itself, the avionics likely aren’t the root cause of the problem, but it ain’t going to be solved without direct observation. Why not have that person be someone familiar with avionics transitions so the OP isn’t paying the CFI to learn his avionics while also finding/fixing root causes instead of stumbling through this one sortie at a time.

I’m sitting back thinking the OP is behind the plane and slow and maneuvering at night in a perceived nose high attitude is the wrong place to be.

Best of luck to the OP.
 
Have you tried sitting on a cushion or something to get a bit more height in the seat? Try a few landings with the lights on low or medium. I am probably just strange but for me depth perception and peripheral vision works much better at night if you get rid of the glare that comes from some runway lights at high.
 
The reason I'm not night current is I'd have to land back at c81 eventually. Crappy runway edge lights and an inop tri color vasi. Not to mention that deer you can't see. Was real fun during training. I feel your pain
 
mandm said:
Now with the night time landings, as I’m slowing down the aircraft, the nose pitches up in the Arrow and you cannot see ahead,
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The runway may be a black hole, but runway lights should give height cues.
 
Ditto above.

I used runway edge lights as primary for height, and distance from center/edge. Day and night.

Normal landings were nose high, main gear only, until under speed where elevator had authority.
 
Try using soft field landing technique at night.
 
eman1200 said:
What did I miss? What do avionics have to do with night landings?
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Can be a couple of things: Either a lot of light inside the cockpit making night vision worse, or fixation on the much-more-sensitive airspeed indication are probably the most likely ones.
 
mandm said:
Any tips or suggestions for perfecting night landings?
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Two things, 1) find the zero-thrust position on the throttle and touch down with that, then squeeze off the last little bit, and 2) Find the centerline paint in the landing light spot on the runway and follow that with your eyes on short final through the flare.

That should allow better height awareness through the flare and keep the nose from "just dropping down" when you chop the power.
 
Physiological differences you don’t really think about.

You react to things in focus, ie on your focal point (fovea?) consciously.

You react to things in your peripheral vision subconsciously.

So at night you are missing information you really didn’t even know you had.

That’s why you THINK you don’t know how high you are, you really do. If someone snuck into your house and made all your dining room chairs a half inch taller, you’d notice INSTANTLY. You KNOW how high you are.

Just keep this in mind as you practice practice practice.
 
Went up with a CFI and while we flew during the day and it was in a 172 (and in the right seat), I realize that I need to focus more on rudder usage and being coordinated. For me this is something I think I glossed over because I’m flying mostly xc flights and not really spending much time in slow flight which requires more rudder usage. Usually we just want to land when we arrive and it’s usually straight in, configuring on short final for landing.

Another thing was the difference that crosswinds have on high wing vs low wing airplanes and aileron usage on take off and landings. I think I’m confusing a YouTube video that I talked about cross controls causing issues on landing. Will work more on these.
 
Practice, practice and more practice.
Lately I have been flying my buddies PA-28R-200 with him in the plane. I have about 15 hours in it now and about 35-40 landings in it during the day. I need 25 hours to be insured.
Definitely different than landing my 172.
During the hot summer nights is when I get a lot of night landings in.
Take off an hour before sunset when it is cooling down and then come back and work the pattern for a while in the dark. Usually have the whole airport to myself. I love to fly at night. So smooth and cool.
Good luck with your night landings.
 
Like any landing, learn to feel for ground effect, set attitude, add a tiny bit of power if sink develops, and don't let it land. Then it will.
 
Like AV8R_87 said, make sure you are high enough in the seat.

And like flyingcheesehead said make sure it is dark in your cabin at night.
I turn my I pad off and turn down my panel lights when in the pattern. I do it before I get to the airport so my eyes can adjust.

LED landing lights help a bunch also.
Again good luck to you.
 
Use softfield technique and land 3-4 mph faster so that the AC is still flyable. "FEEL" for the ground, even as you slip- a little more and then a little less downwind wing down aileron, more than less, more than less........w eoltimers call that "feeling for the runway".

That 1500 rpm or so, will slow down the process of the last 2 feet to the "touch" and keep you flying despite the fact that pilots flare HIGHER at night than they are used to....(I've seen enough of if from the right seat instructionally that it's a pretty sure bet).

That also goes a long way to avoiding "dropping it on" and the low final rate of descent protects you from BANGING it on.
 
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Night landings are easy peasy. Just install a Landing Height System. Nothing like altitude call outs in the flare. :D
 
mandm said:
I’ve been having issues with my night landings lately, maybe as I’m more comfortable with the basics, I’m noticing the other stuff more closely. I don’t think I ever had issues with night landings before but maybe I’m not doing as many take offs and landings as before and they are becoming rusty? I’ve been focusing on my day time landings, touching down on the mains and holding off the nose for a bit for aerodynamic braking and to baby my nose wheel down to the ground. But sometimes I do it wrong and you feel the nose wheel just drop down.

Now with the night time landings, as I’m slowing down the aircraft, the nose pitches up in the Arrow and you cannot see ahead, so I’m basically relying on looking out the sides and judging (guessing) my height, and I don’t like this because I don’t really know how high I am off the ground. Last night, a crosswind gust hit me and I opted for a go around. I was able to land on the second try, I got the mains down good but the flare of the nose wheel dropped a bit more than I’d like it to.

Any tips or suggestions for perfecting night landings?
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If you can see the distant end of the runway at day time as the nose pitches up, why is it different at night time? Is it possible you have your panel lights turned up too bright?

The main difference between day time and night time, in my opinion, is the lack of depth perception, which comes from not seeing the trees, weeds and even the grooves on the runway. But that is a separate issue from the runway disappearing as you pitch up. This should be the same at day or night.
 
sarangan said:
If you can see the distant end of the runway at day time as the nose pitches up, why is it different at night time? Is it possible you have your panel lights turned up too bright?

The main difference between day time and night time, in my opinion, is the lack of depth perception, which comes from not seeing the trees, weeds and even the grooves on the runway. But that is a separate issue from the runway disappearing as you pitch up. This should be the same at day or night.
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I can gauge out the side window much easier during the day time. At night I cannot.
 
mandm said:
I can gauge out the side window much easier during the day time. At night I cannot.
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Your statement said "with the night time landings, as I’m slowing down the aircraft, the nose pitches up in the Arrow and you cannot see ahead". That's what I was responding to.
 
When I flair I'm looking off to the side as some have suggested. I have a wing mounted taxi/landing light on the left side which illuminates, quite nicely, the area I'm focusing on in the flair. I get two clues from the illumination: 1) runway gets brighter as I get closer helping me judge height, and 2) as I flair, the light pattern on the runway becomes elongated giving me clues to pitch.
 
I built a simple landing height system for my Mooney about 6 months ago. It uses a LIDAR transmitter and has a range of about 50ft-150ft (height depends on surface and reflectivity). It will announce on a speaker from 50ft down and at various altitudes down to a foot along with a height value display and 3 LED lights for different heigh zones. On a go-around, it will reset itself automatically so you don't have to fiddle with it. I thought it was fairly useful at night especially at unfamiliar airports.
 
Interesting thread. I’m not a CFI, but the comments about cockpit brightness and peripheral vision make a lot of sense to me.

At night it seems easy to get too focused on the panel or airspeed number, especially with modern glass, and then lose some of the outside picture that you normally use without even thinking about it during the day. I like the idea of turning screens/panel lights down before getting into the pattern so your eyes have time to adjust, not only during the flare.

The seat-height point is also a good one. If you’re already losing forward visibility in the flare, being even a little lower in the seat would probably make the sight picture worse. Cheap thing to test before changing technique too much.

For me the biggest takeaway from the thread is probably: don’t try to “perfect” the touchdown at night by forcing it. Stabilized approach, correct speed, small power changes if needed, use the runway lights/peripheral vision, and go around if it doesn’t look right. The OP’s go-around after the gust sounds like the right decision, not a failure.
 
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