Gliding in the dark
 

What do you do if your aircraft became a glider at night without moon or town lights over the forrest or mountainous area? Apart from cross your fingers and pray. Has anyone had real engine failure at night on sigle engine aircraft?
Only thing I can think is to go through all troubleshooting checks and approach into wind to get the slowest possible ground speed and pray.

Cha-never (yet) had an actual engine failure...rough running a few times with some interesting returns. What I was taught, particularly over forest/mountainous terrain was:
Trim for best glide
Run the restart drill
Aim between trees...the branches will further slow you down and reduce impact forces - plus more than likely leaving the fuel tanks behind you.
If no trees (bare mountain) slow to stall and attempt to land "up hill". ALOT easier said than done, though.:ooh:

It appears as though I get first shot at the old and over used cliche / joke on this one - woo hoo!

When you get close to the ground, turn on the landing lights. If you don't like what you see, turn them back off. It doesn't matter either way cos that's where you're destiny's taking you.

In all seriousness, alot of people recommend a ditching if it's possible to find water. If you're over forrest then you use the standard tree landing ie try and stall just above the canopy line and drop in hoping that the branches will take your fall / slow it down plus it's better to have vertical movement in this situation than trying to fly horizontally through the tree trunks. Over mountains - when you can't see !!!!e - personally i'd accept fate, go for one last skydive and end it on a high note.

Also landing lights off until approx 200 AGL, then switch on - If you don't like what you see, switch them off again.

There's a body of opinion (as very well expressed in several of Richard Bach's books) that nobody should fly SE/night without parachutes.

Certainly I think I'd put more money on my surviving my first night parachute descent than my first night outfield landing, even if it means throwing the aeroplane away.

That said, I confess to having done some SE night flying, but generally when there's a good moon and I'm confident of my ability to see the fields. (What in a less safe era was called a "bombers moon"). On the odd occasions where I didn't have such a moon, it was an uncomfortable experience and I'm not sure I'd really want to make a habit of it.

G

Re. opinions to not fly at all at night without parachutes:

As you state, the moon is a good friend. Flying cross country in good moonlight is a piece of cake, also should it come to selecting a landing site.

Re the parachutes, I can't take that seriously ! Isn't it practically impossible to disembark a normal single engine airplane in flight in any reasonable time ? You can't get the doors up ! Not to mention any back seat pax.

That's surely a judgment depending upon conditions and the nature of flight.

But if I was asked to, say, take three pax in a PA28 on a moonless night, they'd be welcome - in my car!

G

My plan for an engine failure during night flight is to point into wind, stay in control slowing to just above the stall speed as I approach the ground - probably with only 10 degrees of flap to make the descent rate as slow as I can. Probably aiming for somewhere dark unless there is an obviously well lit landing area and with the landing lights on so I have a chance of manoeuvring and flaring as I reached the ground.

If there's a 10 knot wind, I should arrive on the ground in control with a ground speed of only about 35 knots and as long as I didn't hit anything solid head-on immediately, I'd fancy my chances.

People seem to concentrate on engine failures but I would imagine that CFIT and loss of control are more of a danger at night. Has any analysis of the accident statistics been carried out in this area?

Thanks everyone for sharing your thought. I think it is good idea not to go or chose full moon night.

I’ve never had an actual engine failure, but I have had major – major – fuel scare at night in a C150. In the Florida Everglades, of all places.

The forced landing brief was short and sweet – pitch for best glide, declare mayday, point into wind and try and find somewhere near some lights. Not much more you can say – the prospect of gliding into the swamp in the wee small hours is a bit of a conversation killer.

To cut a long story short, we did eventually make it to a runway, but it was a very nasty experience (although an excellent cure for constipation).

Daytime VMC, I’d feel quite confident about getting into a field without damaging myself, assuming a little good luck. IMHO, pulling off the same result at night needs a huge dose of good luck, and that’s not a risk I want to inflict on myself, never mind passengers.

Perhaps on those moonless nights, instead of a parachute, carry some of these:

See in the dark

Rather expensive but you could also use them to save electricity at home:)

Actually that's rather cheaper than a slimline parachute - although I can guarantee that no light aircraft cockpit will be NVG compatible (a big issue in military aircraft approval work). You'd have to turn off the cockpit lights and fly by feel (maybe you'd get a reasonable idea of attitude, maybe not).

The best combination would probably be an NVG monacle combined with a torch blocking the frequencies of light received by the NVG unit.

Actually that would be great fun to try - carefully and under controlled conditions. Does anybody have a set?

G

If they did work, I wonder if it would be legal to fly into unlighted farm strips at night using them?

MichaelJP59,

I would have thought nvs would be more than a Monkey. I'm not a gadget-fiend but I am serisouly tempted!

Or you could chuck a couple of flares out the window and hope they don't hit anyone! :\

There was a book on night flying that had pictures of a Bonanza equipped with a number of tubes to shoot out parachute flares along with narrative on use of same.

Don't even think of trying to use night yision equipment for flying a private aircraft at night! There have been numerous military accidents using this technique. You lose depth perception and peripheral vision.

You might make a takeoff, but your chances of a successful landing are about zero.

My plan for an engine failure at night is not to have one ;)

Like some other posters, I've flown an SEP at night ( had a night rating since 1994), but these days, the cliche about old pilots and bold pilots persuades me towards cowardice!

MJP59

I have used 1st Gen night vision equipment and can tell you it's rubbish.

On a perfect full moon you could pick out a field, but on a full moon you can see well enough with bare eyes, assuming reasonably dark-adapted eyesight and no cockpit lights.

2nd Gen aren't much better.

3rd Gen NVGs would do the job fine but they are expensive; a few grand, and cannot be legally imported into the UK, and cannot be legally sold here either (other than to military / law enforcement obviously). Sure you could get them (hint: they are openly sold in California) but are still pricey and anything less than 3rd gen would be a waste of time.

The other thing is that cockpit (instrument) lights would completely fog out the NVGs. Mil aircraft designed for NVG ops have special instrument light mode for this purpose; too dim to see with the naked eye.

So to land with 3G NVGs you would need to switch off all lights, including external ones.

As a last resort thing, I am sure it would work. But pricey, and you'd need to have them handy!

Personally, I will fly high over the Alps with the tops shrouded in cloud but would not fly on a pitch dark night, and avoid night flying anyway.

Great idea. You get out and leave your uncontrolled plane to smash into some poor sods house.