On Tue, 26 Sep 2006 00:49:58 +0200, Denis wrote:

[Posted on behalf of Jean-Marie Clement
(http://topfly.free.fr/en/accueil.htm)]

Thank you for the extremely interesting post.

There were a number of flights made from Gariep Dam, South Africa, ending
with landings well after sunset, about 10 years ago. These were all record
attempt flights completed by very experienced pilots. I believe that they
were to some extent responsible for later amendments to the IGC Sporting
Code regulating night flying for record attempts.

Typically the flights involved a late thermal climb, close to
sunset, followed by a final glide and landing after sunset.

The more "interesting" landings where those following aborted tasks. As in
these tasks a thermal climb at sunset was not possible and the self
launching glider's motor was used to climb to final glide height. The
landings after some of these flights occurred in total darkness. (This
enabled the glider to land at home base and be ready for another flight
the following day, rather than land out some time before sunset).

The glider was equipped with instrument lighting but no navigational
lights.

The runway did not have runway lights either. Landings were made in the
light of the a motor car headlights. The procedure for this is
interesting and may come in useful to readers of the forum faced with an
emergency situation.

- Firstly the car was parked on the threshold of the runway with 4 way
indicator lights flashing. This served as a beacon that the pilot could
identify many miles away. (Remember this airfield is literally in the
middle of a totally unpopulated region in darkest Africa).

- The car headlights were aimed down the runway from the threshold, into
wind.

- There was radio contact between the pilot and the car driver.

- As the landing glider crossed the car on finals the pilot made a
call to the car driver and the car accelerated such that the car
followed the glider and the car lights illuminated the area of
runway where the glider touched down.

The people involved in these landings were all very experienced pilots and
the risks were carefully assessed and managed. Personally I think the most
dangerous part were the risks associated with "night flying VFR" that have
been described in the previous post.

In the long run, however, it is probably in the best interests of the
sport that the IGC Sporting code has been amended and there is little
further motivation for this type of activity.

Likewise I think that it is accepted that deliberate after dark landings
are not regarded as sporting conduct on the OLC competition - which
thrives on the principal that it is a self policing competition.

But how may Night VFR certified motor gliders exist in the world? One,
yes. Two, I don't think so. And the owner of the only one refuses to put
his flights on the OLC since he does not agree with the rule that imposes
to file the flight within midnight of every Tuesday otherwise flight is
invalid. The longest flight ever made in the Alps (1.350km) had been
refused because of that rule which is simply impossible to fulfil when you
outland on Tuesday evening! FAI requires 7 days and I see no reason for
not implementing this rule.

I must agree with the poster on this point. I always assumed that a flight
ending on Monday or Tuesday could be posted any time up until Tuesday the
following week, ie 7 or 8 days after landing. If see no reason why this
should not be changed, maybe for OLC 2007/2008.

Regarding night certified gliders, what about the Perlan project glider?


Regards


Ian