Last year I only had time for my first night flying lesson, this year I'm going to finish off the rating. This Monday I had a lesson booked, which looks like it's going to be the only good night this week.
Anyway, I had an Archer booked, and my instructor had to go get current first, so by the time he got back it was well dark. I started up and then found that even with the landing light on, I couldn't see squat in the dark. The aero club has a very bright automatic floodlight that makes it very hard to see to taxi, especially with the windscreen fogging up.
I'd had a joyride last year, so this time we got straight into circuits, and to begin with I was really crap. Thankfully after a solid hour of circuits, lots of orbits (thanks to Air NZ and a certain Rice Rocket), some short approaches, approaches with and without the PAPIs, and lots of landings of various levels of violence, I was starting to get almost good at it!! I found it interesting that the landing technique at night seems to be a case of: raise the nose and wait for the 'arrival' :-) This is the closest we will get to carrier landings, methinks...
I have 2 hours of solo night flying remaining, plus 1 hour of either dual or solo and I'm rated. Woo hoo!
4 comments:
Did your instructor make you land without the landing light on? Now that is one scary experience.
All but the first landing was with the light off. As I said, you raise the nose and wait for the arrival. Interesting at first but you get used to it pretty fast
Night flying is great isn't it?? I am hoping to do a night cross-country down to the 'Tron sometime.
One trick my instructor taught me is to sit on the runway before take-off for 5-10secs and memorise the perspective of the runway lights...
The second trick is remembering that that perspective is the one you have when you are already on the ground... NOT when you want to start your flare ;)
And I've found landing without the landing light is actually easier...
Thanks for the tips mate. Night flying is a whole different world, I had no idea!
I believe we aren't allowed to do night x-countries at our club, something about mitigating the risk of night engine failures
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