Welcome to the airplane!
We are going for a night flight tonight.
We are going to head down to Toronto and complete a city tour before coming home.
It's a super Moon tomorrow night but it's meant to be rain, cloud, snow and all kinds
of horrible weather so we thought we would go tonight.
Most of the time I end up flying it's pitch black so it will be nice to actually see a
whole bunch of stuff.
Are you going to Pearson there James?
Yea I was thinking about doing it.
Good for you!
I will let you know how it goes.
Yea please do, maybe I will do it another time.
23Mp 23RPM, 130mph & 1200feet per minute climb.
Peterborough traffic YEL, currently 8nm to the East of the field at 3000 feet, inbound
for landing, Peterborough.
Look at that Moon!
So night VFR flying is a truly fantastic experience.
Even night IFR flying is also fantastic but the ability to fly VFR at night is something
that is special to us here in Canada and the United States.
Lots of countries don't allow it.
It really is something that I would strongly recommend that you look at and see if it is
something that you enjoy and then get the training so that you can do it yourself.
It is very quiet at night, it's generally very smooth conditions and it's a completely
different world.
That last statement is so true because of that we need we need to be very careful about
how we conduct night flight.
Everything is more difficult at night.
Once it becomes completely dark you can't see clouds, unless they are being illuminated
by a very strong moon or the lights of a city but if it's totally pitch black you can't
see clouds or weather.
These factors make things a lot more difficult.
If there is no cultural lighting on the ground and its a dark overcast night with no moon
actually it's really not legal to be VFR flying at night because VFR night flight still requires
us to have visual reference to the ground.
The only way that can happen is that there is sufficient cultural lighting or ambient
moon and star light to provide us with that background.
So on a bright night its fantastic and if there is snow on the ground it's almost like
daylight.
We do have to be careful that it's not so dark and that we are not in such a remote
area that we actually don't legally have the visual reference for night flying.
Then we just need to be very cautions about everything else that we do.
We don't do any where near as much night flying so your not as experienced nor is your skill
set as brushed up.
Normally we sleep at night and work in the day so fatigue can be a lot more of an issue.
Our eyes consume a lot more oxygen at night so they recommend that you don't fly above
5000 feet at night without supplemental oxygen.
Obviously your physical fitness level, if your a smoker or not is really going to affect
you.
These are all things to take into consideration, we really want to make sure that we are safe
to fly from a physical point of view.
We really want to make sure that the weather is good and we want to have higher weather
minima, better visibility, better cloud height, less chance of precipitation and keeping in
mind that it cools off at night and as the air cools its ability to hold moisture reduces
and we get closer to the dew point, saturation and that is when we can start getting ground
fog and things like that developing.
So we have to be really careful that we don't get ourselves into a difficult situation.
So not to scare you, but there is a lot of things to be cautions of there.
If you can find an experience night pilot to do some training with you that would be
really beneficial because certain airports, especially if they don't have approach lighting,
they can really through some nasty illusions at you and you have to be really really aware
of.
We are going to rely a lot more on the instrumentation in the aircraft when flying at night especially
if we are taking off on a dark night from a runway that does not have much cultural
light off the end of it, we can get whats called a black hole affect and we get an illusion
of pitching up that means we inadvertently pitch down and if we don't check what we are
doing we end up with a controlled flight into terrain.
This can happen even to very experience pilots.
So there is a few different illusions that make it more challenging but as long as you
are diligent and prepared it's a very rewarding experience.
Now when your night flying your going to need a few extra bits of equipment in the airplane.
You need heated pitot, stall warning device, attitude indicator, and directional gyro you
obviously need a landing light if your going to carry passengers and you need to have nav
lights as well.
You also need to make sure all of that is working.
Tonight we did the walk around and the port nav light was not working.
A quick check told me the bulb was dead and i stole the one of my fathers Teal and away
we go.
Definitely need to check those and make sure that we have a flash light and some extra
illumination on board.
Make sure your well prepared for whats going on.
Preparation is always important for night flying.
If we are just going around the local area and returning to the same airport, okay everything
seems straight forward.
If we are trying to get places then fuel can become an issue so we want to call ahead to
determine its status.
The other thing that can be interesting that you might not expect is that certain airports
have different types of lighting systems.
Uncontrolled airports in Canada it is very common to have ARCAL type lighting, pilot
operated lighting, that is activated by clicking the radio a certain number of times for different
intensity levels.
Some airports, due to their proximity to other airports and things like that will have a
separate frequency to activate the ARCAL lighting, separate that is to the mandatory frequency
or aerodrome traffic frequency that is in use for the airport especially if your in
a single com airplane!
If you are in a single com airplane I would highly recommend carrying a portable radio
with you.
You can get adapters to plug into into your headset so you can communicate, although the
range will be fairly limited.
More importantly though, from 10 to 15 miles away you will be able to activate ARCAL lighting
on.
An electrical failure or radio failure at night can be a little stressful if your struggling
to get the illumination on at the airport.
The transition between daylight and actually darkness can be interesting because the red
cockpit illumination can be of insufficient intensity to overcome the remaining ambient
lighting outside the airplane but there is not sufficient outside light to see your instruments.
Playing with different illumination in the cockpit will be required.
On certain IFR flights at night, because of the weather your not looking outside anyway
so your concentrating on what is happening in the cockpit and I like to have extra light
on because I can see switches a lot easier and I am not fumbling for them.
What I don't like at night, especially when IFR flying is, I don't like throwing my head
all over the place because that is a good way to give yourself some vestibular illusions.
I like the extra illumination so that I can fly and I can read everything and see everything
and I look with my eyes and I keep a good focus.
Without the lighting on even with the red lights on you just can't read what the different
switches are.
The other option is the headlamp.
It has got a straight red light that we can switch on and that provides excellent illumination.
Pearson Tower Piper Aztec GWIQ.
WIQ Tower squak ident altimeter 29.90.
WIQ
WIQ I have the lights up a bit for you there on 33R do you have that in sight?
WIQ we are looking I am pretty sure I have the RILLS at the end of the runway.
WIQ we have the field in sight.
WIQ roger you can continue inbound for 33R there is just one crossing at the threshold.
WIQ
You would think that is a lot easier to spot at night but it is not.
WIQ the winds 020 at 6 altimeter 29.90 if I didn't give you that initially you are cleared
for the low approach and overshoot Rwy 33R.
Thank you very much sir, cleared for the low approach and overshoot RWY 33R WIQ.
WIQ there is not much going on so if you want you can plan to do this one and then at the
end do a left turn out and we will set you up for another one on to 15R and then get
you going towards Peterborough.
Thats really appreciated for WIQ.
I think next time I will give the center a call and see about maybe doing an IFR flight
plan down here and seeing how much I embarrass myself with a really big airport.
Your more than welcome, I think we have more low and overs than IFR traffic now.
It would be good practice for me other than just going to Kitchener, London that sort
of size airport.
WIQ you can start the turn for the low and over for 15R when ever you like.
We will start the turn here for the low and over on 15R WIQ
WIQ do you just want to make that a left base for RWY05 for the low and over?
Actually yea if we could do that be great, I just realized what I had done, sorry about
that.
WIQ not a problem cleared low and over RWY 05 now, winds 020 at 7.
Low
and over 05 WIQ
WOW this is just totally bizarre
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