Night Lights OFF?

[847NAS]

Hi there, funny question i'll say why in time.

Are there ANY instances when you would fly a helicopter at night in 6/8ths cloud without any lights on? is it legal? perhaps for a Police ASU flight or similar?

Many Thanks

Jack

[Gordy]

Yep---

However, the anticollision lights need not be lighted when the pilot-in-command determines that, because of operating conditions, it would be in the interest of safety to turn the lights off.


14 CFR Part 91.209(b) (http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=bb08a6fa35eddf5946ee1f8d4e9781f6&rgn=div8&view=text&node=14:2.0.1.3.10.3.7.5&idno=14)

I used to do it all the time---the lights reflecting off the clouds can be distracting.

[RaymondKHessel]

and strobe lights reflecting off the rotor blades can be distracting as well.

[ShyTorque]

Seeing as the question originates in UK, the ANO is the required reference.

Display of lights by aircraft
47.—(1) During the night an aircraft shall—
(a) display such of the lights specified in this Section as it is required by this Section; and
(b) subject to rule 49(6), not display any other lights which might obscure or otherwise impair the visibility of, or be mistaken for, such lights.
(2) Subject to rule 48(4) an aircraft fitted with an anti-collision light shall display that light in flight during the day.
(3) A flying machine on a United Kingdom aerodrome shall—
(a) during the night display either the lights which it would be required to display when flying or the lights specified in rule 49(5)(c) unless it is stationary on the apron or on that part of the aerodrome provided for the maintenance of aircraft; and
(b) during the day and night and subject to paragraph (4), display a red anti-collision light, if it is fitted with one, when it is stationary on the apron with engines running.
(4) A helicopter to which article 38 applies may, when stationary on an offshore installation, switch off the anti-collision light required to be shown by paragraph (3)(b) as long as that is done in accordance with a procedure contained in the operations manual of the helicopter as a signal to
ground personnel that it is safe to approach the helicopter for the purpose of embarkation or disembarkation of passengers or the loading or unloading of cargo.
Failure of navigation and anti-collision lights
48.—(1) Paragraphs (2), (3) and (4) shall apply to aircraft in the United Kingdom.
(2) An aircraft shall not depart from an aerodrome if there is a failure of any light which these Rules require to be displayed at night and the light cannot be immediately repaired or replaced.
(3) Subject to paragraph (4), if the aircraft is in flight and any such light as is referred to in paragraph (2) fails and cannot be immediately repaired or replaced, the aircraft shall land as soon as it can safely do so, unless authorised by the appropriate air traffic control unit to continue its
flight.
(4) An aircraft may continue to fly during the day in the event of a failure of an anti-collision light provided the light is repaired at the earliest practicable opportunity.


The answer is, at least in UK, that lights must always be displayed by aircraft covered by the civilian air navigation regulations.

Military aircraft are not covered and will sometimes be flown without normal navigation lights or anti-collision lights (such as when using night vision devices). These flights are usually NOTAM'd.

I know of one commercial pilot here in UK who was fined £2000 by the CAA after a circuit breaker popped. He took off in the dark without navigation lights and was reported by ATC.

[847NAS]

Well last night a 23:30 hours, I saw one of the Met police's EC145s hovering pretty high (though not quite in the cloud) without a single light on, not even anti collision, the heli was simply a black blob in the cloud and I had trouble keeping track of it but for the distinctive noise. It eventually moved of to the north (towards Isle of Dogs)

The Met pilots are civilians on contract are they not? in any case I'm sure they had a valid reason, and there was no mistake, on takeoff the pilot is questioned by the rear observer on whether the correct lights are on.

One more note, the only light I did see was an occasional bright white light shining out of the cabin, I undertsand the ASU do alot of aerial photography and maybe it has something to do wIth this?

Im a curious person and this was something I'd never seen:suspect:

[Fareastdriver]

As bigger and better high rise buildings went up in Shenzhen, China, a fashion came of having large randomly pointing laser beams mounted on the roofs. At night they would be spearing through the air on returning to the heliport. Not too much of a problem. Seeing one of them coming towards you closing your eyes or turning your face away was sufficient. Then some burke disconnected their automatic one and decided to use it manually and guess what was the most attractive target.
We knew something was wrong when the beam, instead of sweeping past, stopped and hovered around the aircraft's position. He wasn't a very good short so the beam wasn't hitting the cockpit but was very close, stopping above, below and either side. Getting fed up with this I switched off the anti-coll, position and cabin lights, broke hard to starboard and dived off 500ft. The passenger didn't even wake up.
I put in the complaint telling them which building it was but it went on, and so did we, lightless, for another couple of days before we were told the police had sorted it.

[2896]

I thought the rules have changed and one can now use the H.I.S.L in place of the anti collision at night, that's what was suggested with a link to the ANO a couple of years back.

Could anyone be so kind and confirm this.:ok:

[MightyGem]

I thought the rules have changed
There was a time when helicopters couldn't show a white HISL at night. This rule changed a few years ago.

[Flying Bull]

Hi all,
new tec could be involved, we have IR-lights fitted, so you can see each other, when flying with NVG.
Still, when doing so, we have to observe the civis, wich won´t see us.
Greetings Flying Bull

[timex]

Probably forgot....our Obs don't ask about the lights.

[2896]

Thanks MightyGem :ok:

I wonder why the MET don't use H.I.S.L. I find them very hard to notice in daylight and at night.

[griffothefog]

Wouldn't the met be covered under their POC for special ops/observation?
Don't know just guessing, but I know when we do low level offshore drug ops at night we don't use any lights to avoid being shot at :eek: These guy's are always tooled up and who knows, maybe there's potential for that in London these days. :{

[Heli-phile]

Your getting very warm griffothefog!!

Too many scrotes with rifles and no brains.

[Le Singe]

Does anyone know if the heli lanes can be flown at night?

[MBJ]

Yes - Particularly for the Police if they are being "covert". However, I don't think its legal to have no lights at all.

In Oman, single aircraft at night, if we were doing a pick up in the Jebel, we'd kill the lights till the last minute.

..and just for a laugh we tried night "stream" in 848NAS, using "Rebecca" to hold distance from the lead aircraft with no lights. Character building but reduced grown men to tears after a while! :-)

[ReverseFlight]

Of course you'd have heard of the joke that when you don't like what you see when doing an auto at night, you switch off your landing lights. :}

Actually there's a bit of truth in that in a normal landing, a landing light beam only focuses on a narrow spot and tends to contrast too brightly against a darker background - you'll see bits of grass here and there but can't find the helipad. Switching it off and relying on peripheral vision is a much better proposition. :)

[ShyTorque]

Heli Lanes
Does anyone know if the heli lanes can be flown at night?

Le Singe, ever heard of Special VFR?

[Pilot DAR]

I was very nearly the unwitting victem of this type of nonsense...

I was two hours into a night VFR search over our local lake in my Cessna, in my capacity as a local volunteer with the fire deparment, who has jurisdiction in that area. The subject of the search was a completely unlit small boat adrift, miles off shore. Two of our boats were also on the water, and I was in radio communication with them. The subject of our search could not be located, though we knew he was there, we had cell phone contact with him, and he could see and hear me going over. I had hand held night vision, but it was not useful in this situation, as the subject was completley unlit.

I called for assistance from the military rescue services. They are more than an hour away. They were dispatched. Their service consisted of a C-130 Hercules for high support, and dropping illumination flares, and a Cormorant helicopter. I maintained a listening watch on the appropriate frequency, after telling the flight service station specialist to notify the SAR crews that I was working in the area, and not to be surprized to find me there.

After an hour, I made radio contact with the C-130 ("Tiger 625"), including my position and altitude (700 feet AWL). The C-130 informed me that the Cormorant was about 15 minutes behind him. The C-130 orbited high. I orbited at the reported altitude, the general area of our search subject, and near our fireboat.

I watched for the Cormorant. My first awareness of it was my fellow firefighters in the fireboat below me reporting on the fire radio, that the Cormorant just flew over. I told them that they were probably hearing and seeing me, as I was above them, and I had been watching, and not seen the Cormorant. They insisted it had been a helicopter. Then, in the dim reflection of the hazy moonlight on the surface of the lake, I saw the exhaust heat trails of the Cormorant under me. I looked again for the helicopter, and still did not see it. At that point, our fire boat found the search subject, and picked him up uninjured. This was reported to all, including the C-130 pilot. I asked the C-130 pilot if the Cormorant had just flown under me, and he did not reply. I did hear him call the Cormorant, and say that the boater was safe, and they were to "RTB". The C-130 pilot did not speak to me again, and the Cormorant pilot had never spoken to me. I figured that "RTB" must have meant return to base, 'cause they were gone.

Rather alarmed, I realized that the helicopter probably had not been displaying any navigation or other external lights, and had flown very close to me, underneath. Who knows, how close, but a mid air collision had been a risk, which I could not have mitigated. Notifying them of my presence had not helped my safety as it should.

The next day, I phoned the rescue center. To my surprize, I got the Cormorant pilot on the phone. I asked if he had seen me... "no". Had he displayed nav lights? "no, the observers were using night vision, and the helicopter's nav lights conflicted with the night vision". I expressed my great displeasure to him, that his choice to fly at night, in uncontrolled - airspace, where I had reported my presence and location, and in contact with his partner aircraft, with no lights, and not confirming my relative position , was very simply wrecklessly unsafe, and a violation of Canada's air regulations. He did not have too much to say to that. I asked him to fly with greater care next time.

I did not make any more of an issue of it, though some people encouraged me to. I have since been told that there are now nav lights which are visible, but not night vision sensative. I hope that the Canadian Cormorants, among other search aircraft, will be equipped with these, for the sake of the rest of us!

Pilot DAR

[[email protected]]

Unless the rules have changed it is twin only for night helilanes, singles not allowed.

Pilot DAR - we don't switch off our nav lights when we are conducting NVG searches, HISLs maybe but nav light no, so I don't think the Cormorant crew had any defence for their actions at all. As far as the search goes, the light on a cell phone can be seen from miles away on NVG so next time get him to point it at you instead of his ear:)

[VeeAny]

Crab

Some of the lanes are available to singles at night.

From Heathrows AIP Entry

iii The following routes are not available to single-engined helicopters at night: H7, H9 (Hayes to Gutteridge) and H10 (Gutteridge to Kew
Bridge).


http://www.nats-uk.ead-it.com/aip/current/ad/EGLL/EG_AD_2_EGLL_en.pdf

GS

[Fareastdriver]

I do not know whether Pumas still have them but in the 70s Pumas had blue night formation lights mounted on top of the sponsons and doghouse.
One night we tried night formation with just NV goggles and formation lights. You could hold position quite easily. The fomation lights gave you a good reference coupled with the shape of the aircraft and as you were looking down the jet exhaust the power turbine lit up like a beacon. Unfortuately the rest of the crew were having kittens.............

[tightrope]

if a police aircraft were to be "bending" rules by operating without lights at night, then we should be happy that there is a justifiable reason for it.
Sometimes it helps to be able to sneak up on people..!
Obviously i'm not condoning any breaking of caa regs.. all im saying is, lets not draw any extra attention to it IF it does happen.. and be happy that it will be done as safely as possible.
If it does happen that is.. which i doubt.. ;)

[B.U.D.G.I.E]

Well last night a 23:30 hours, I saw one of the Met police's EC145s hovering pretty high (though not quite in the cloud) without a single light on, not even anti collision, the heli was simply a black blob in the cloud and I had trouble keeping track of it but for the distinctive noise. It eventually moved of to the north (towards Isle of Dogs)

How do you know who it was if it was dark and had no lights on.....???

[britinusa]

Crab,
Whilst on NVGs, I have had to switch off the Sea King Nav lights on many occasions when flying around the dark and scary Scottish mountains, trying to slide up a mountain in low viz or when encountering an unexpected snowstorm.

You should try it:)

[847NAS]

Its over my way most nights and I recognise the sound, the fact it was hovering at about 1000-1500ft is also a bit of a giveaway...

[[email protected]]

Britinusa - that's not quite the same as conducting a search over water though!

I too have switched off nav lights to remove the disc obscuration caused by the port nav light when turning left in the mountains but not because the lights interfere with the NVG.:)