NIGHT FLYING
Something we haven't covered so far is night-flying training, which had culminated in two cross-country flights to Edinburgh (Turnhouse) and back - the first dual and the second solo - before we did our CPL GFTs. In my case it started in the second week of November and totalled about 12 hours' flying in 8 weeks, of which 4 hours were dual. This was interspersed with our normal day flying, which was mainly solo and cross-country and included landings away from Perth, plus our CPL GFT cross-country with the CFI, Don Pow. All this had taken us through December and into January, with about 12 days' leave over Christmas and New Year.
It's probably worth mentioning something about the Scone airfield and the aeroplane. The runways and taxiing routes outside the apron area were all grass, and after a spell of wet weather the very high number of movements resulted in the softer areas becoming very muddy. Aircraft occasionally got stuck. One fairly effective taxiing technique on the C150 was to apply a lot of power and full up-elevator just before reaching a muddy patch, and speed across it. So much for the recommended "fast walking-pace"...
Unfortunately, night flying in Scotland in summer is virtually impossible, and the autumn and spring tend to be wet. So winter conditions can be the best.
Parts of the runways at Scone also became soft and muddy. On take-off the C150 would un-stick at about 45 mph IAS. It was not uncommon to reach about 40 mph, then hit a soft patch. At night that happened with little warning from the landing lights, and the IAS sometimes decayed for some seconds before increasing again. The trees not far beyond the end of the westerly runways were invisible.
The C150's achilles-heel was the nose-gear leg, which had a tendency to collapse. The most common cause seemed to be a fast landing with touchdown on three points on soft ground, and I don't recall any breaking on take-off while I was there. I don't think we were allowed to touch-and-go at night, but I stand to be corrected.
After a few sessions of circuit-bashing, we did a couple of local excursions a few miles away to Newburgh or Coupar Angus so as to practise rejoining the circuit at night. Later, the night cross-countries to Edinburgh took us ESE at 2500 ft to Creil, on the east coast of Fife, and then WSW along the coast via Leven and Kirkcaldy to a place called Aberdour. There we had to hold until Turnhouse Approach gave us clearance to cross the Firth of Forth and join the circuit. Plenty of lights of habitation except over the centre of Fife and, of course, the Firth. The latter looks very wide and dark when on the wrong side of it in a single-engined aeroplane at 2000 ft, the altitude ATC cleared me to hold at Aberdour on my solo trip.