On Thursday, July 6, 2017 at 4:05:44 PM UTC-5, Duster wrote:
On Thursday, July 6, 2017 at 3:18:14 PM UTC-5, Sierra Whiskey wrote:
14 CFR Part 1.1
"Night means the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the Air Almanac, converted to local time."

SW, Don't think it's relevant in this case. That's the FAR definition of "night/day time". Just guessing that a total eclipse might put a pilot into a known IMC condition. The sun is a meteorologic player, that's how I would tie it into. Since you can see the stars and plants during the event, it must get pretty dark. Could kill lift for awhile if soaring.

Duster, VFR minimums do not specify "sun shining". It is ceiling and visibility that defines VFR or IMC. You do not need to have an instrument rating to fly at night. "Night" is defined as SW pointed out, and does not care if the sun is hiding behind the moon or not. It is sun position relative to the horizon. Totality in Uli's area will be about two and a half minutes. Start to end, it will be, I believe, more than an hour. Get out your Gren Siebels books. Might have been Jim Smiley that did it long ago. He got as high as he could before, flew min sink and kept looking for lift (it was still there), and thermalled again on the other side of the eclipse.

Steve Leonard