Night Flying

Actually, you don't even need snow or a full moon. Just a partial moon or
star light is good enough. We often fly with too much cockpit lighting to
notice the outside. Next time you fly at night, turn off all cockpit
lights. Give your eyes plenty of time to get adjusted. You will be amazed
how much ground you can see. Only drawback is that you won't be able to see
your panel too well. I used to do this when I flew in New Mexico.



"Peter R." wrote in
:

buttman wrote:

When its dark, you can't see anything. One of the things that
attracts people to flying is being able to see things from high
above.

You've obviously never flown over a snow-covered landscape with a full
moon above.

Regarding a full moon, one of my most memorable night-time flights
involved flying an Angel Flight mission from Philadelphia (Wings
Field) to Boston (Bedford).

We were over central Long Island when we spotted a lone thunderstorm
cell about 75 miles off, somewhere near Providence, Rhode Island.
Lightening, moving up and down the cell, lit it up beautifully. As if
this weren't enough, the full moon appeared and slowly rose above the
cell. Surreal.

My camera was safely on my desk at home.

On 14 Jul 2005 23:02:40 -0500, Andrew Sarangan
wrote:

Actually, you don't even need snow or a full moon. Just a partial moon or
star light is good enough. We often fly with too much cockpit lighting to
notice the outside. Next time you fly at night, turn off all cockpit
lights. Give your eyes plenty of time to get adjusted. You will be amazed
how much ground you can see. Only drawback is that you won't be able to see
your panel too well. I used to do this when I flew in New Mexico.

Around here in northern New England there's one other drawback, if you
lose your engine you cannot see what you will hit when you attempt to
land and most of the land below you is famously hilly. I had two
night cross country flights during training and both were during
pretty dark nights. Yes the lights were pretty but it was really
sobering to realise how few options were available should the fan
stop.

Even crossing the mountain ranges in broad daylight is a flight of
considerable risk, akin to crossing a large body of water.

Things would be better of course during a full moon night, but trying
to match the full moon or even mostly full moon with good flying
weather is, this summer anyway, pretty tough.

Since I'm just flying for personal enjoyment, I've chosen to stay on
the ground during the night.

Corky Scott

Agreed... For VFR flying, a minimum of a partial moon is on the list
of my personal minimums, which include many of the other pm's mentioned
in previous posts. I'm IFR, but that doesn't do a lot of good when you
can't see anything in a "less than partial panel" situation, with no
airports close by...

Seeing a major city's downtown lit up at night is quite a sight!

There's the added bonus of smoother air, like in those early morning
flights we all love...