Why aren't permit aircraft allow to fly at night
 

Why can't permit aircraft fly at night, IR etc ?
when most of the ones I have seen are better equipped than your usual club aircraft and probably fly quicker as well

Cheers


I know I am probably going to be told i'm being stupid :ouch:

If ever Night/IFR privileges are granted to permit types, then there will be some pile of scrap aluminium going cheap :E

Jonkil

Permit type aircraft are allowed to fly IFR in the USA. Gliders with hardly any instruments are alowed to fly in IMC in the UK.
Mad world.

Pace

Well, the writing is on the wall. There was a limitation that "experimentals" were not allowed to fly over built-up areas, but this limit has recently been removed, at least here in NL.

I don't see any fundamental reason why the Night/IFR restriction could not be lifted somewhere in the future, other than bureaucratic inertia. (And subject to reasonable requirements of course, with regards to lights, FM immune radios, nav equipment and so forth.)

The overflight restriction on Permit aircraft has been removed for the UK. Night and IFR are being worked on, according to the LAA CEO. It is an obsolete restriction.

Rod1

It does sound like...
 

...Permit is the way to go, now has anybody got a nice CH701 for sale?

They are considered less reliable :)

.. .. .. hat, coat, boot up the .. .. ..

The overflight restriction ws lifted on the basis that permit aircraft were actually slightly more reliable!

Have a look on AFORS that 701 is a good one.

Saw that, it looks lovely! Been looking Ewe-Tube and been seriously considering that this could match my mission profile (bimbling, landing in friends field....). Right now, that's a tad on the wrong side of my budget, but I must say awefully tempting to go and see the nice man at Natwest......

Why can't permit aircraft do night
 

The answer to the question is that a permit aircraft CAN do night. It's only the rules that say it shouldn't!

Perhaps the matter is also complicated in the UK because all night flight is IFR.

Thats a funny one as the aircraft doesnt know its flying at night anymore than an aircraft doesnt know its flying over water or in cloud.
Only the pilot knows these things :) and only the pilot messes up.

Pace

Permit aircraft should be approved to fly at night providing the owners can produce evidence to the controlling authority that the electrical system has sufficient capacity and redundancy. There is a world of difference flying at night when the sky is full of stars as to when you run into unseen clouds particularly those where icing conditions may be prevelant.

For night VFR you need an electrical load analysis, (load shedding and how many minutes available after alternator / generator failure) and assessment of the cockpit lighting in realistic conditions (feedback from canopy, nav lights and beacons in VMC and in cloud).

A dark cockpit on a black night is a totally different environment to that on a sunny day and all aspects need to be taken into consideration. You cannot assess this in daylight or simulated night condtions as the shadow fall is different.

You cannot rely upon a headband mounted torch to solve inherent design / lighting problems. You still have to aviate, navigate and communicate and just as MP3 players and mobile phones can be overbright in the early hours of the morning some of the GPS units need to be overbright to read the details.

Believe me if not correctly lit the instruments do not provide a reassuring glow when the lights go out, they are not luminescent!

As I said earlier, there is no such thing as night VFR in the UK.

There are rules that forbid the use of Permit Aircraft at night.

There are rules that forbid the use of speeds in excess of the limit for cars.

Rules sometimes get broken.

It is only a problem if you get caught.

Nudge nudge Wink wink, Say no more Squire;);)

You didn't see me right?

Sir George Cayley

Jodel 1050s could legally be flown at night and IFR until 2008, provided they were suitably equipped, and the pilot was suitably qualified. They had full C of As. Now they are Permit, they cannot be flown at night nor IFR.

Night is just a rule; a technicality, and yes you need the lights.

IFR is a very different issue. The plane needs to be built to fly in IMC, which means being electrically conductive for lightning discharges, and that is a real issue if you are trying to build a dirt cheap and light all-plastic plane. Radio comms need to work when in cloud too and even "IFR certified" Diamond DA40s have major issues with that right now. You don't want avionics crashing due to static. You also need decent radio nav equipment, though that could (should, IMHO) be said for night flight, because "night" is not necessarily 5 minutes after sunset which is how most UK PPLs log their "night time" ;)

Only a part of the IFR issue is the IFR certification of this and that and avionics... that is a problem we are stuck with for now, and is a practical problem because very few pilots will buy a cheap plastic plane and then install 50kg of IFR certified avionics. I don't know how this will be handled. A Garmin 496 works OK for IFR in practice - if you are a masochist. There is no obvious way to deal with this; IFR avionics functionality is defined for good reasons.

Because they will just plummet out of the sky!!!

It takes tons of data to remove restrictive legislation like this. Both the NPPL relaxation of medical requirements and the recent removal of overflight restrictions were granted on the basis of data showing that the risk to the public wouldn't increase.

I wonder how the information on night flying and IFR is going to be gathered. The US seems the only source of real data but I wonder if this will be accepted in the UK.

ZA

:hmm:


You mean quadrantal flight levels !

“Anybody can fly IFR in class G airspace whenever they want to in any type of aircraft”

NO

Permit aircraft (in the UK) have a restriction of VFR only.:ugh:

Rod1