Originally Posted by
TheOddOne
Something about self-fulfilling prophesies?
Ahhh, no, just me being the usual chicken-sh!t coward. Night flying has similar incident rate as daytime flying (e.g., the engine doesn't know if it's day or night), only the consequences are more serious, i.e., fatality rate per incident. So as you say, the correct strategy is to stay out of incidents during night flights altogether, with absolutely thorough preparations. Must be ready even for extremes, e.g., a small misfiring at the beginning of a takeoff roll is not a huge issue during the day, you give it a few seconds to pick up RPM, but at night, the slightest deviation from expected behavior better result in aborting / diverting / precautionary landing. That goes for everything, weather, instruments, fuel consumption, navigation etc. Prevention is the key, becase the options are very very limited when something eventually happens.
However the fantastic view is absolutely worthwhile all those preparations and conservative decision-making
