The only way you're going to be comfortable flyig at night is to fly at
night.

Do touch and goes. Go out 10 miles and return, then 20, then out of
sight of the airport.

Navigate navigate, navigate. On your daytime flights navigate by
instruments, take small steps but be sure you know where you are and
where you're going.

Do stay high longer: descending at night can be tricky, especially if
there's no clear horizon. Eve though you're VFR, believe your
instruments, NOT outside reference, with respect to wings level.

Keep turns modest -- half standard rate is a good maximum. You want to
do nothing that will induce an unintentional unusual attitude.

Get your instructor to induce vertigo, under the hood, so that you
understand without a doubt that your inner ear is not to be trusted.

On a XC, even more than during the day, do a 180 if everything doesn't
look and feel exactly right.

Now, all of that sounds frightening and I don't mean for it to be.
There's usually much less traffic at night, the air is usually
smoother, and sometimes it's magical. There's more -- when you taxi in
between the blue lights, you're going to feel like a complete pilot.

Having said all of that, I can say I did very little VFR at night, but
a ton of IFR in SEL. I just checked my logbook and found about 24% of
my total time is logged as night. Most often I had business meetings
that ran late, and my next stop was 3 hours away: it adds up.



Good luck!



On Dec 9, 1:40 pm, wrote:
I have about 150 total hours now, but my only night flights were during
my training as required for certification.

I fly in the Bay Area, CA I would love to see the beautiful scenery of
the city lights that night flying offers.

How long does it take to comfortabley fly at night and how do those of
you that fly at night navigate in the dark?

Or I guess a better question is what techniques do you use at night to
navigate that are different then how you navigate during the day?

Do you just fly the altitudes that you fly during the day time to stay
safely from getting too close to anything?

I know the easy answer is to go up with an instructor, and I plan too,
but I wanted to hear from you all first and see what you do differently
at night versus the day and how many of you actually take advantage of
night flying.