Night Rating

[P.O.M]

Looking at starting my night rating, could anyone provide any info, tips or ideas to help with the rating?

Any and all info appreciated.

Cheers
P.O.M:D

[bcfc]

A night rating is required to fly during the hours of darkness - officially between half an hour after sunset and half an hour before sunrise.

You'll need to complete at least five hours flight by night of which a minimum of three hours will be dual instruction with one hour as a night navigation sortie. The remainder may be solo and must include five solo take offs and five solo full stop landings.

With me, 3 hours ground school was required.

If Perth-ish means Perth Scotland, I guess you won't being doing much night flying for a few weeks unless your airfield is 24hr or open very late at least.

-bcfc

[FormationFlyer]

I know its picky...but the Night Rating is dead and can be issued no more...

What you want to do now is a JAR Night Qualification.

You can find out all the details in the GID on the CAA website - just go to publications....you can view or d/l the pdf from there.

Hope this helps

[englishal]

Do they still charge £64 for the 'Night Qualification' even though it is no longer a 'rating'?

bet they do.

Cheers
EA;)

[Circuit Basher]

Sorry to repeat what has probably already been discussed many times, but on an aside, Perth (or any other airfield, for that matter) is only licensed for its published hours, which in summer are until 1900 and winter until 1700 IIRC.

For ab initio night training, this must be conducted during licensed hours. If one already has a rating and just wishes to do an hour or two to learn local procedures / refresh ones memory (as a Night Rating doesn't have to be re-validated per se), then this can be conducted outside licensed hours.

Strange but true!! :p

[P.O.M]

Thanks all, appreciate the replies.

I'm in Western Australia, we still have night ratings here.

I was looking for information along the lines of hints or tips for night flying that won't always get brought up in training.;)

There are nearly always little tricks that are learn't from experience or passed from one old bold to another.

Cheers
P.O.M:D

[englishal]

Don't spend too long up at 10,000' at night without oxygen...your eyes start playing tricks on you....The FAA recommends 5500' at night, although its better to fly over any mountains than into them :D

Cheers
EA:)

[P.O.M]

Cheers, luckily the highest spot height around here is under 2000ft ;) so that gives me plenty of sky to play with:D

Cheers
P.O.M:D

[AerBabe]

I've not done it yet, but I intend to later in the year and so am on the look out for tips too! One I've heard is that if you draw a line round any towns on your map with a marker then the shapes are easier to match up. Oh, and in the event of an engine failure, aim for the dark patches... :)

[wet wet wet]

To add to previous advice, the procedure that I was taught to use in the event of an engine failure at night in a single goes like this:
1. aim for dark patch
2. at 500 feet landing light ON
3. if you don't like what you see, landing light OFF!

[Tinstaafl]

Night VFR – Some differences

Some of these points are fairly general, others specific to Australia eg the LSALT rule allowing immediate descent under certain circumstances, navaid rules.

Some may be different to what your instructor & school teaches, in which case your school's procedures should take priority.


Flight Preparation

Pilot:

Physiological limitations

Vision:
· Takes around 30 minutes for vision to adjust. Far longer if prior daytime exposure to very bright lighting eg beach, over water, snow
· Avoid bright sunlight during the day
· Peripheral vision is more sensitive in dim light so avoid looking directly at objects to see them. Better to look slightly to the side of the expected position

Sense of balance ie inner ear:
· With minimal, or no, visual reference (the natural horizon, ground etc) the human animal is not capable of determining the difference between acceleration and attitude
· Acceleration is easily and incorrectly confused for an attitude change eg forward acceleration interpreted as a pitch up
· Has a ‘minimum threshold’ for perception so any motion below that threshold is not recognised

Psychological:
· Diurnal cycle of human activity has a peak during the day but a low point around 3 or 4 am.
· May already have experienced a full day of activity prior to the flight commencing. Fatigue effects may be more problematic

Equipment:

General
· Where possible make use of the daylight to do pre-flight, refuel, move aircraft to a suitably uncongested parking area
· Avoid covering charts with contact. Reflected cockpit lighting can interfere with reading the chart
· Avoid using red or green ink or pencil. Under red cockpit lighting these colours tend to become invisible

Lighting

Additional lighting required
· Crew – torches. NB A torch held to shine through the fuel sample cup from the side is effective for seeing any water droplets.
· Aircraft - cockpit lighting (2 sources), landing lights, beacon & navigation lights, pilot & passenger compartment lights. Can check post lights during daylight by putting your finger under the beam
· Aerodrome – runway lighting, wind indicator lighting, obstruction lighting, 2 types of taxiway lights (blue sideline, green centreline), holding points

Instruments

In addition to Airspeed Indicator, Altimeter, Compass & timepiece, NVFR requires
· Attitude Indicator
· Directional Indicator
· Turn Coordinator
· Radio navigation equipment eg NDB or VOR (is DME only acceptable?). Of course this means the ground station is also necessary

Planning:

Take-off & Departure

· Consider obstacles in the circuit area & necessity to climb to LSALT (see en-route) prior to leaving the circuit area
· Additional time & fuel will be necessary during this climb prior to departure

En-route

· LSALT required to be calculated for all route sectors (1000’ within 10nm)
· Weather forecast needs to be very good due difficulty to see & avoid cloud.
· What navigation aids are you qualified to use & are they available? Must have at least one eg NDB

Arrival & Landing

· Plan to descend while circling within the circling area of the AD. Can reduce the height to descend by planning multiple sectors, each with it’s own LSALT, even on a straight leg eg BIK to YSBK has a high LSALT however a new LSALT can be applied from YSCN & again from 2RN
· More fuel will be required for this procedure
· Alternate requirements more extensive ie Wx, Aids, Lights
Note: 60 minute flight time limitation for ALTN due Aids


In Flight

Take-off & Departure

· Lack of visual reference after take-off & the necessity to rely wholly on instruments
· Propensity for somatogravic illusions during climb out. Limit Angle of Bank to achieve Rate 1 or so


En-route

· Must not fly below LSALT.
Note: can descend immediately to a new LSALT if visually (& only visually) past the critical object. ie don’t have to allow 10 nm behind A/C in this circumstance
· May only be able to determine presence of cloud by what you can’t see ie. Cloud occluding some or all of a town’s lights or that of an area of stars or the moon
· Navigation uses a combination of visual & radio navaid techniques

Visual:
· Navigate using light sources eg towns, cities, roads with traffic, sometimes bodies of water reflecting moon etc
· Estimating distance extremely difficult so may have to use patterns of light sources
· Bodies of water may be recognisable by the outline formed by town/city lights around the shore
· May be appropriate to use PAL to confirm position

Radio:
· NDB may have reduced range at night
· Must not focus on navigation instruments or aircraft control and accuracy can suffer


Arrival & Landing

· Don’t descend below LSALT outside the circuit area
· Approaches without glideslope guidance are extremely prone to errors in judgement due visual illusions. For a 1000’ circuit height, a base turn at 45° will give a top of final height of 500’. At this top of final you can determine the unique sight picture (‘perspective’) for an approach to that runway
· Consciously look at the far end of the runway as the threshold disappears under the nose otherwise you will look into the pool of light just ahead of the aircraft & fly into it.
· Use peripheral vision to perceive a descent (or otherwise) to the runway. Controlled power reduction can be used to maintain a sink onto the runway while raising the nose to apparently meet the runway end lights
Note: Height judgement is unreliable at night due lack of depth perception. Different runway widths & lengths will cause a flare at different heights with the high possibility of stalling at some height above the runway - hence using a controlled descent rate to the runway
· Be cautious about taxi speeds & exiting the runway. It is difficult to judge roll-out speeds at night & easy to try to exit the runway at too high a speed for control & safety.

[Final 3 Greens]

I've had a night rating for a little over 6 years.

My only point would be to make sure that you are comfortable flying on instruments, becuase if you inadvertently enter a cloud or fly over a dark area, it can be disconcerting unless you are okay on the panel.

Ou of interest, in the UK we can only fly IFR at night, but night rated pilots without an instrument qualification can fly visually, in VMC - crazy world eh?

[MLS-12D]

Even experienced pilots still occasionally have problems with the flare at night (it is difficult to estimate your height in poor visibility). If you butcher a landing, go around and practice a few more times.

You should never let the airspeed bleed under any condition on approach, but this is especially true at night. Add power and lower the nose, but whatever you do NEVER let the airspeed bleed off near the ground at night.

It's important to stabilise your approach on finals; fly a slightly larger circuit, this gives you more time to get set up. Use power and avoid gliding approaches until you are more experienced.

[DB6]

Learn how to land in a crosswind with crossed controls, if you haven't already. As mentioned above, it is difficult to know exactly when you will touch down so, while surface winds are generally lower at night (reduced thermal mixing) when you do have a crosswind the crab/kicking straight method can be difficult to get right. In addition, be aware that the difference between surface wind and that at circuit height will be markedly greater than during the day so drift on downwind will be more noticeable