Originally Posted by
megan
Never a truer word, night VFR in my time in Oz was legal in pitch black conditions, all that was needed was VFR weather as defined by regs, and keep clear of cloud, was never said how you do that in pitch black conditions, the following is the report of a fatal night VFR accident by a 16,000 hour pilot.
Lessons even learnt by the regulator. **
https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/566884...02%20Final.pdf
**Indeed. I was taught from the start of my military career to fly unstabilised "floppy stick" helicopters both by night and on instruments under IFR, day and night (because that's all they had in the training system back then). However, they ALL had "blind flying" flight instruments.
I later flew a "floppy stick" public transport (police) helicopter by night, single pilot without a current instrument rating. After an accident to a police helicopter some twenty years ago, the UK CAA changed the rules such that either a second pilot was carried for such flights (impractical) or that an autopilot, i.e. a full trim/stabilisation system was installed (also impractical) and that police pilots flew a dedicated monthly instrument flying training sortie which included an ILS. That led to the ultimate demise of the AS355 for the UK police role.