Student Pilot - Video Report of my First Night Flight

eetrojan

eetrojan

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eetrojan
Here’s a video of my first night flight with my instructor Mark, from John Wayne Airport, to Chino Airport, and back:

Shorter 8-minute version – http://youtu.be/aU0ZzVfD_8w
Longer 30-minute version – http://youtu.be/R6Xsih-a61A

My student takeaways on flying at night are:

  • It’s stunningly beautiful.
  • It’s VERY hard to find an airport in the bright lights of an urban sprawl.
  • The freeways are NOT nearly as prominent as you might expect them to be.
  • The airport beacons are NOT easy to spot (at least around here).
  • It’s hard to see the runways.
  • You CANNOT see the runway edge lights when approaching from the side, only when you are generally aligned for landing. It’s important to keep track of which runway you might be seeing and which runway you want to land on.
  • When Approach gives you a vector, it’s not necessarily to the runway. Independent pilotage is still important.
  • It’s hard to see the runway if you forget to turn your landing light on. We planned on making a future landing without the landing light to simulate a power out situation, but I didn't plan this one. The landing light is your friend. The checklist is your friend (I turned on the fuel pump switch, but skipped over the landing light switch right next to it). A separate light for the checklist might be helpful.
  • For some unknown reason, my landings are way smoother when it’s dark out. Perhaps it’s just blind luck. Pun intended.
  • Three hours of training is probably not enough to be competent.
 
Good stuff! Great night video too. Well done
 
lol great reaction when ur instructor said 'no landing light'. I forgot, what camera are u using?
 
eman1200 said:
lol great reaction when ur instructor said 'no landing light'. I forgot, what camera are u using?
Click to expand...

Yup. That reaction seemed perfectly natural to me at that point as I really couldn't do much about it by then. We had talked about a no lights landing, so I figured I was just all in. ;)

The camera is just a GoPro. I like it, set and forget.
 
eman1200 said:
cool, I got the hero2 I just didn't know how it did in the dark, but looks good!
Click to expand...

I've been using a Hero2, but just got a Hero3 too to eventually try to have multiple angles. This was my first video with the Hero3. I set it to 1080p/29.97 to match the best output from the Hero2. Not sure if there's much difference.

I think it would have been better if we had dimmed the center-mounted Garmin. That way it would have been more evenly lit and probably exposed a bit better.
 
The video is nice. I think for night time you have to put it in a spot so that it can focus properly. I have a nFlightcam and mounted it to my headset for my night XC and the video was not great. With my head moving around all the time it seemed like it was having to constantly refocus. Not an issue during the day. I'm happy with the camera because of the options, easy audio, size, etc... though. I'll probably buy a Hero3 to do some multi-angle stuff though and audio won't be an issue because I'll be grabbing it from the nFlightcam.
 
It's very different from my night training in very rural North Florida. I was actually amazed how far off I could see the various airport beacons.
 
register@teamandras.com said:
Here’s a video of my first night flight with my instructor Mark, from John Wayne Airport, to Chino Airport, and back:

Shorter 8-minute version – http://youtu.be/aU0ZzVfD_8w
Longer 30-minute version – http://youtu.be/R6Xsih-a61A

My student takeaways on flying at night are:

  • It’s stunningly beautiful.
  • It’s VERY hard to find an airport in the bright lights of an urban sprawl.
  • The freeways are NOT nearly as prominent as you might expect them to be.
  • The airport beacons are NOT easy to spot (at least around here).
  • It’s hard to see the runways.
  • You CANNOT see the runway edge lights when approaching from the side, only when you are generally aligned for landing. It’s important to keep track of which runway you might be seeing and which runway you want to land on.
  • When Approach gives you a vector, it’s not necessarily to the runway. Independent pilotage is still important.
  • It’s hard to see the runway if you forget to turn your landing light on. We planned on making a future landing without the landing light to simulate a power out situation, but I didn't plan this one. The landing light is your friend. The checklist is your friend (I turned on the fuel pump switch, but skipped over the landing light switch right next to it). A separate light for the checklist might be helpful.
  • For some unknown reason, my landings are way smoother when it’s dark out. Perhaps it’s just blind luck. Pun intended.
  • Three hours of training is probably not enough to be competent.
Click to expand...


Awesome job. Thanks for sharing

Your first night experience kind of mirrored mine, I went out from VNY to Riverside.
I didn't have to much trouble finding the freeways on my route, but I have trouble with the OC freeways in the day so don't feel bad about that.

It is tough to see the airports in the urban sprawl for sure, that's why knowing where you are all the time is important as you say.

Your instructor sounds cool, very calm and helpful.

Couple of things I picked up different from my training.
When I'm on with socal and I want to pick up the ATIS, I have been taught to monitor it on he second radio so I can hear a traffic advisory or instruction from control if needed.
Also regards to the lights, I have been told at night to just leave them all on, gives everyone a better chance of seeing us.

My landings at night where better also, I was told its the different way the cones and rods in the eyes differentiate. colour, center, and depth perception between day and night..:confused:

Totally agree 3 hours does not seem nearly enough does it...:no:

For some reason my gopro didn't work as well a night as yours.:mad:
 
Good video. My take away from every one of my night flights (which are about half my logbook)......they are never fun, though often pretty :)
 
ferrari-tech said:
Your instructor sounds cool, very calm and helpful.
Click to expand...

I think I'm very lucky on this one. I've had a couple of flights with other instructors (some pattern work, a couple of stage checks), but have consistently worked with Mark for nearly 18 months (I don't fly very often). He's terrific.

ferrari-tech said:
Couple of things I picked up different from my training.
When I'm on with socal and I want to pick up the ATIS, I have been taught to monitor it on he second radio so I can hear a traffic advisory or instruction from control if needed.
Click to expand...

This particular plane has a Garmin 430 Nav/Com, which evidently has GPS, but only one com radio and only one nav radio. So, unfortunately, I can't monitor ATIS on a second frequency.

I was doing most of my "stage 2" training in a plane that has a Garmin SL30 radio (no GPS, radio only, but dual com frequencies and dual nav frequencies), but that plane had a prop strike so I moved back to this one.

Thus, I'm relegated to requesting a frequency change. On occasion, approach just gives me the ATIS.


ferrari-tech said:
Also regards to the lights, I have been told at night to just leave them all on, gives everyone a better chance of seeing us.
Click to expand...

I'd prefer to leave the landing light on too, but my CFI is pretty adamant that it should go off in cruise. I need to clarify why.

ferrari-tech said:
For some reason my gopro didn't work as well a night as yours.
Click to expand...

I shot this with a GoPro Hero3. Do you have a Hero2 or Hero3? I thought they were similar, but recently read that the Hero3 has better low light performance.
 
Fly-Fla said:
It's very different from my night training in very rural North Florida. I was actually amazed how far off I could see the various airport beacons.
Click to expand...

Hi Fly-Fla. I figured that would be the case in a more rural area. I'd love to try that sometime.
 
ferrari-tech said:
Your first night experience kind of mirrored mine, I went out from VNY to Riverside.
I didn't have to much trouble finding the freeways on my route, but I have trouble with the OC freeways in the day so don't feel bad about that.
Click to expand...

Did you get to turn on the lights at KRAL?
 
register@teamandras.com said:
I shot this with a GoPro Hero3. Do you have a Hero2 or Hero3? I thought they were similar, but recently read that the Hero3 has better low light performance.
Click to expand...


I have a Hero 3 also, but I go the $299 version not the $399 one. I think the Megapixels on yours are 12 vs 6 on mine. That would be the difference. Time for an upgrade I guess
 
Your radio work is very good. Nice job.
 
Great Video! Really enjoyed watching it. Thanks for posting it!
 
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