Top end,
Territory IFR eh? Well at least it's day time.
How many, I dunno exactly but over the last 10 - 15 years it seems an all too regular an occurrence.
I'm not saying you can't do it if you are flying the right machinery and are very current. For instance, the HA MPT guys out of Karratha fly to moving ships just about every night and surprise surprise they're bloody good at it and they have good well equipped machinery too. But that's just it, they do it all the time. The real danger comes when it's on an ad hoc basis where all of a sudden it's thrust upon you to either get your client home or on some bogus night ems job in a light single without the proper kit or ifr training! Seriously at night I reckon it's got to be two engines, IFR rated and current, fully stabilised machine etc etc.
Sure when it's a perfect clear fully moonlit night with good vis then you have some visual reference but the trouble is that you can't only go NVFR on those nights and stay in business.
If it's black it's an IFR flight plain and simple.
The longer the seat of the pants, 'I'm a bloody legend' gang continue to do it then there will be a continuance of the crash reports identifying 'spatial disorientation at night' being the primary cause of the accident.
A pilot could 'get away with it' for ages and not get disorientated at night but sooner or later irrespective of their experience level they'll chuck a wobbler and it's all over.
Then, when they're dead people say, oh he was a very experienced pilot with x thousands of hours and x years experience, very respected in the industry blah blah must have had some sort of mechanical failure blah blah. Bull****, they took off on a pitch black as guts night and flew vfr really well right up until the minute they lost the plot and flew it straight into the bush upside down at vne!
CASA do your job and regulate NVFR into the history books. The bar for air safety standards has been raised, make night time the domain of the trained and equipped?
