Originally Posted by
MD900 Explorer
Nick Lappos I agree, but isnt the FAA system such that you do 5 hrs dual and then 5 hours solo at night? Sounds like a great idea. If you havn't soiled your pants before you certainly would then. Certainly would instill discipline and respect for mother nature.
I guess the CAA is just a money grabbing machine, instead of making sure that pilots get decent training without it costing their lives.
rotorboater Don't be lured by all this scare mongering, as i said in my previous post, it is down to attitude. If you think doing the night qual will make you a better pilot, by instilling in you more skills and the right respect for mother nature, then go ahead and do it. If you think you would only abuse the Instrument appreciation and "try and see" what it is like on your own, send your licence back to the CAA and get a new hobby. This is no place for statistics.
If you wanna find out what it is like before you try it (Night/ inadvertent IMC) find someone like
verticalhold who is both qualified and willing to show you what it is all about before you part with your hard earned coin. Then make a choice.
Eitherway Stay safe and remember, keep it in the green
MD
Good post! For goodness sake, flying at night is not the same as flying in cloud. You still rely on the good old Mk1 eyeball to navigate and see. In fact, as an old lag told me, if you can see 10 miles during the day, you can see 20 miles at night.
Personally I beleive that we should be given just enough instrument appreciation to learn that you don't fly at night when there is even a danger of running into cloud - and that 10 hours is a CAA-imposed overkill. Tell me someone: how many lives have been saved as a direct result of the introduction (about 5 years ago) of the 10 hour instrument appreciation part of the night flying syllabus?? Or imaybe it's just to make the night rating more difficult to get, hence less attractive to the ordinary PPL pilot? Maybe I'm just a sceptic.
As a rule of thumb, whatever limits I might impose myself for flying during the day....I double them for night flying and I would never, ever rely on a night flight to get me home. There be dragons!!
RB, you should do it: flying at night is a rare and interesting privilege and it definitely hones your flying skills. If people want to get high and mighty on here about it, that's their loss.