Maintenance Flight at Night

[Maddam]

Greetings All,

Your valuable input is appreciated.

How smart & safe is it to conduct a maintenace flight at night?

Regards
MAD DAM

:rolleyes:

[500guy]

I never liked it. The chances of a failure are much higher on maintance flights. (hopefully somone has stats) Night autos are no fun, especially if you are not going to a runway... Some companies do allow them, but not many.

[SASless]

Done lots of them....but preferred complex flights be done in the daylight for all the reasons given earlier by 500guy.....besides I think better in the daylight for some reason.

In Flight tracking with a Strobex can be interesting....it sure makes the blade targets stand out...but plays heck with your Night Vision.

When precision is needed for some checks....calm smooth night air helps out.

[bladegrip]

Good points and I concur. But it isn't always practical to conduct them in daylight. We get a lot of dark here in the high latitudes for half the year...Alaska. We mitigate the risk as much as possible by the points you've mentioned and with two pilots on board.

[Megawart]

We're a Search and Rescue unit, and we will do limited aspects of the flight servicing schedule at night, but only if we're off state and desperately need to get back on.

You have to ask yourself, will someone really die if this aircraft remains unserviceable overnight, are there really no other alternatives or resources to complete the job? And finally, what happens when it all goes badly wrong and you have a major emergency in the pitch dark?