NVFR Training
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NVFR Training
At present my Night Flying experience isn't as extensive as I wish it could be. I have a student or two interested in obtaining their NVFR rating. I have no issues with the 3 hrs of Night Circuits training that need to be conducted.
Im just after any information that any other instructors may have, in regard to what points to focus on for the Nav exercises, particularly the decents and climb outs from aerodromes abstinent from good ground lighting 'black hole approaches'
any information will be helpful and appreciated
Im just after any information that any other instructors may have, in regard to what points to focus on for the Nav exercises, particularly the decents and climb outs from aerodromes abstinent from good ground lighting 'black hole approaches'
any information will be helpful and appreciated
Last edited by JRL89; 24th Jun 2010 at 01:22. Reason: cant spell
Do a search on these forum for 'NVFR' or 'Night VFR' and similar. You'l find a wealth of information.
Here's my NVFR training in a nutshell, copied from an older thread:
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). consider subdividing the enroute section(s) with fixes/pinpoints to allow different LSALTs to facillitate departure & arrival.
· 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 & time will be required for this circling procedure, similarly to departure.
· 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.
Here's my NVFR training in a nutshell, copied from an older thread:
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). consider subdividing the enroute section(s) with fixes/pinpoints to allow different LSALTs to facillitate departure & arrival.
· 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 & time will be required for this circling procedure, similarly to departure.
· 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.
Last edited by Tinstaafl; 25th Jun 2010 at 21:00.
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Thanks for the wealth of information, very much appreciate and very helpful. The circling area for decent below LSALT, is the same for IFR procedures? i.e. Cat B Aircraft, 2.66nm From either end of the threshold
You'd think that the school's syllabus would have chapter & verse, or at least references to specific sections in documents wouldn't you, CFI? I've seen a few too many syllabi that best could be described as 'terse' and at worst are little more than an outline. Damn near no content at all.
I think ever since ops manuals & associated syllabi were 'accepted' instead of 'approved' the quality of what can get by has deteriorated. Not every school, of course. Many do write decent stuff, but unfortunately not all.
I think ever since ops manuals & associated syllabi were 'accepted' instead of 'approved' the quality of what can get by has deteriorated. Not every school, of course. Many do write decent stuff, but unfortunately not all.
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Night VFR
Tinstaafl:
I thought your post was very good, lots of good information.
My comment is that at a "black hole" airport the take -off after the lift off point, is not a visual manoeuvre on many of the shorter runways and so the control of the aircraft has to be by instruments and not visual means.
Regards
Tmb
I thought your post was very good, lots of good information.
My comment is that at a "black hole" airport the take -off after the lift off point, is not a visual manoeuvre on many of the shorter runways and so the control of the aircraft has to be by instruments and not visual means.
Regards
Tmb
I always taught that the point on rotation where the end of the runway is lost from sight until the crosswind turn is completed is flown on almost entirely instruments.
