Helicopter over water flight at night.
 

Hello All,
I am trying to gather information on over water flight at night. Years ago when I was a very young helicopter spring-ling working the Tuna Boat circuit our rule of thumb was to never fly over water at night (VFR). As most helicopters on boats were not equipped with Artificial Horizons or accurate altimeters this seems perfectly sensible. However my thought today is that flying VFR at night over water with limited equipment would be fine. Say if you had Artificial Horizon, VSI, HIS. Maybe even more safe than over land - as you have no obstacles. What is your take or experience and what minimum equipment would you say is necessary?

VFR at night over water, first thing on my mind is how many lights (boats) out there, because preception would be a factor. Unlike night VFR over a built up area the ocean, desert and arctic can play with some very serious illusions if one has not had the necessary experience and training, not to mention proper equipment.
I am a firm believer that a well almost anyone can fly over water (or any other dark, "black hole" area (VFR flying farmers have been flying over unlight dark prairies for years), to operate (take off, land) is a different story especially if it is a small limited lighted pad.

VFR over water.
 

Call it what you want.Over water, if you lose sight of the illumination along the coast, you are IFR.Sometimes that can happen 3 miles from the coast.:eek: So ,whatever you fly,make sure you have the tools to fly it on instrumnets safely.The rest is all legalistic terminology.
At least that is the view of this ex-swabbie.
Alt 3.

Minimum equipment? In no particular order: floats, life jackets, a raft and a radalt with AVAD. Goon suits if the water is a bit chilly.



:ok:

Hope you are presupposing a decent set of flight instruments!

I was!


;)

it won't be vfr, its IFR
 

No matter what you call it or how much you pretend that you have your visual kews, IT WILL BE IFR as you cannot maintain them for 100% of that flight.

So a proper IFR kit (with autopilot) requires to be fitted to the aircraft and the crew require the appropriate training and currency.

Nothing less should suffise.

VFR at night
 

Is this not another case similar to that of teaching 'instrument appreciaton' as part of the PPL syllabus. If you teach it, people will use it. Part of the CPL syllabus is a night rating but it doesn't mean it's a good idea!

A well respected scottish engineer has warned me in the past and I make no apology for quoting his words of wisdom
"Remember Martin, bats and twats fly at night!"

Hope thats not too rude for the moderator.

Lamaniac,

There was a thread relating to S/E overwater night flight, here.

Although you don't mention S/E ops, there is a lot of reference material in the thread which may be useful.

As one of many who have flown over water at night and out in a B206 in the Caribbean hopping from island to island well after dark. I can truthfully say it can sometimes be scary :mad:.
Also one of the reasons most operators today want Helicopter drivers to have an IFR rating. Not because they will fly/file IFR but because it will be :mad: IFR when VFR.
Besides all the other toys that folks will post here, try and get your boss to put in a good Radar Altimeter. It may be dark out and you have no horizon or be able to tell which is sky or water, but a Radar Altimeter will let you know your altitude all the way to the crash.

I've spent a fair amount of time flying offshore at night, and one thing I've learned is that you had better be IFR current and equipped if you want to survive it. Attempting it VFR will kill you sooner or later.

And police pilots, but I suppose they fall into one of your categories. ;)

And you need to have a properly lit place to land - from the start of this post, it appears that this flying may be off a boat at night - is that correct?

overwater at night
 

Having flown a considerable amount of time offshore at night, I consider a complete IFR package, (with radalt) as mandatory, because the last thing you are going to be is VFR, regardless of the weather. In fact, I like two sets of instruments, so the other pilot can have some too! Another engine also makes me feel much better.