> What’s your strategy when the engine quit? Can it be done safely?
stay in the pattern – its fun at night – and glide to the runway in case the engine quits …
Peter, I accept it isn’t the same but I still think we all occasionally present that we have options which we really don’t have. It is all about percentages. The risk of me screwing up is far higher than an engine failure at night. I do think we as pilots like to look at hardware risks rather than those caused by “wetware”.
Night flying VFR, or light IFR is very pleasant – but in line with posters above I would be reluctant to venture in an aircraft from the typical rental fleet. The holes in the cheese tend to line up quite quickly: loss of instrument lighting; poor avionics; sluggish gyros which precess 20 degrees on a typical circuit; a landing light which may be working; minimal engine instrumentation – in this context the Lycoming or Continental is probably the most reliable component. These typical attributes are tolerable and part of the charm/challenge of day VFR, but bring about a real sense of humour failure at night.
Reminiscing, some of my night cross country flights are the most memorable with great visibility and knowing you are probably one of the few piston GA aircraft operating cross country in Europe. Lots of fond memories coming into LIML before curfew, even if on many occasions you had to practice your ILS skills despite unlimited visibility on top at 2000’.
The NQ is still a pre-requisite for undertaking a CPL, and you still need 100 hours night to un freeze an ATPL – so this tends to be a niche for instructors.
The Super Cub being no electrics and no gyros will have to resign to be committed Day VFR only.
Yes, true; my take on this is that it depends on the exposure time window.
There are many airports where an engine failure will land you in houses. I won’t list them (I prefer to give the [Daily Crap](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html) journos a bit of work to do) but it doesn’t worry me because the time window is miniscule. And there is nearly zero history of landing in houses in these conditions. I can think of just one, G-OMAR, which was a notorious fuel mismanagement incident in a Seneca, not an engine failure. These time windows might be 0.01% of my TT.
Similarly one is sometimes overflying fog. But that is rare too. Maybe 0.1%.
But enroute in solid darkness for a few hours?
> The risk of me screwing up is far higher than an engine failure at night. I do think we as pilots like to look at hardware risks rather than those caused by “wetware”.
Exactly. It’s a bold statement to say “I am IFR rated, I have xxxx hours, etc., therefore I don’t consider myself as the weak spot any longer.”
>therefore I don’t consider myself the weakest element any longer."
See my last post. I am talking about major-time-window exposure i.e. enroute, autopilot, very low workload.
The chance of me or my brain shutting down (i.e. a brain seizure of some sort) or being incapacitated from some other cause during say a 5hr night flight is far lower than that of my engine failing during that time.
The MTBF of a Lyco engine is [believed to be of the order of 50k hours](http://www.vansairforce.com/community/archive/index.php?t-28452.html). This is plausible, given that you are supposed to overhaul at 2k hours and everything is NDTd then, so taking out infant mortality (the engine builder screwing up) and the fact that the vast majority of engines make TBO (or some earlier point e.g. need cylinders pulled) makes 50k sound in the right ballpark.
More googling suggests a PT6 is about 1M hours i.e. 114 years.
The MTBF of a human has been [calculated at 830 years](http://www.qualityandproducts.com/2010/07/06/the-real-meaning-of-mtbf/).
I didn’t mean the brain shutdown/incapacitation scenario. This is indeeed rare.
I meant the “standard” pilot screwup scenario. Very, very common. Nobody’s immune to that.
I fly at night about 11% (from current logbook). This is in the US and the LA basin, which isn’t very difficult night by any means. It’s like a christmas tree. On occasions I have caught myself at the tail end of daylight racing back to civilisation over the mountains and I can’t say I enjoy that feeling, knowing there are peaks below me (even in a twin). I avoid night flying over mountains at almost all costs.
One eye opener and how quickly you can find yourself disoriented at night happened to me about 2 years ago. I needed to be at Inoykern Airport in the Owen’s Valley by the next morning for a job. Inoykern is in the high desert, surrounded to the west by the mighty Sierra Nevadas (with peaks well above 14K feet) and to the left by the biggest military restricted area in California. It’s squeezed in between a rock and a hard place, literally.
The drive by car was closer to 4hrs, so I’d decided early on to fly. Unfortunately, my days work in LA dragged on and it was 9pm before I could get out to the airport and get going. By now it was obviously pitch black. WX was good, but I was tired. Anyway, for the first 45mins or so with all the lights beneath me from SF Valley and Palmdale, it was dead easy. But as you reach Mojave, there aren’t many more lights left, and the terrain is not only rising, you’re coming up to the foothills of the Sierras and you need to get accurate in your navigation, or you’ll be a mountain side ornament.
I followed the road up through the mountains at good altitude, but it was late on a weekday, so cars and trucks were rather far and few between. Visual references were not many. Finally, the PTT lit the airport up with its three rwy’s like a Christmas tree in the distance. A welcome sight. The airport is right on the Restricted airspace line, so I set up for a right downwind. Afraid to bust the R, and afraid to get too low, I realise I’ve turned final way too early and am way too high. Not going to make it down, even on this long rwy. I start a go around. But as soon as I turn right crosswind, all my references go away and I’m left with nothing but pitch blackness. The rwy lights fade away as well on the timer and I can see the glow go out in the reflection under my nacelles. Now I was facing rising terrain and the Sierras out there in pitch blackness as I continued my turn to the downwind. It felt like the turn took forever and that earth was going to come up and grab me. It was very disorienting without any visual clues. Thankfully, I had some basic instrument training by then, and just forced myself to trust what they said. Afraid to do the same mistake again and be too high, but also fighting the feeling of rising terrain coming up to smythe me, I had to trust the published TPA and force myself to not climb anymore. I decided I rather bust the R a little, than have to do another go around, so I extended a bit more. I came in better, but it was still that “black hole” feeling on final when you don’t really know if you’re high enough to clear terrain and the rwy lights are blinding you.
It’s very disconcerting and I learned good lessons that night.
It’s probably time to draw a night flying story from my memoirs…
The cargo runs which I flew weekly or more from north of Toronto to Indiana in the boss’s Cessna 182 went into the fall with continued success. Canada Customs challenges had resulted in my having to clear at Oshawa airport – a little out of the way. My load was light that day, so the boss’s friend Dustin was my passenger for the flight. Upon arriving in Oshawa, It was quite evident to me that even if customs was very fast, I would still not make it back to the [unlit] home strip before the night had set in. No problem, I’d lave the plane at Oshawa (the customs airport), the boss would pick us up, and I would pick it up the next day. I phoned the boss’s home to make the arrangements. His wife told me that he was expecting me at the home strip that night. It had no runway lights how was this supposed to work? I expressed my uncertainty at this to his wife, and asked that she drive down to the aerodrome and specifically ask him if he intended me to land his plane with his passenger onboard there that night. When I phoned her back a little later the answer was “yes”. With some curiosity, off we went…
It was a nice night, and I found the aerodrome without difficulty. Sure enough, runway lights! I turned final, headed so as to clear where I imagined the wires at the end of the runway were, which I could now not see at all. Halfway down final I turned on the landing light, sudden white out! Couldn’t see a thing ahead! Simultaneously, the smell of smoke in the cockpit. Those weren’t runway lights, they were runway fires!
So with the landing light off ‘till the last moment, I flew an acceptable approach, and got in fine. The aerodrome would never be the same….
The boss had paced concrete blocks down both sides of the runway, each of which had fiberglass insulation, soaked in gasoline placed in the holes in the blocks. A quick light, and voila! Runway lights!
With obvious benefits this technology now understood, it was not long (days) before it was employed again. This time the boss’s son was in charge of the quest for fire. Once I drove down from home to the aerodrome, I realized the difference in technique. The boss was safely down and turned around taxiing back. Behind him was an enormous fire spreading rapidly into the corn field beside the runway. Instead of using the proven concrete blocks, son used pails with gasoline poured in. When the boss turned around, he blew over one of the pails, and the gasoline blew all over the corn – woof!
It took a while, and the help of the neighbors, to get the fire out. That was the first blow against the aerodrome. It was not long afterward that the boss decided to bury the wire for runway lights, but that’s a story for another night…
Na, here it is now….
While in Sudbury, awaiting the fuelling of the Cessna 206 I was to ferry home, we were upstairs in Flight Service checking the weather. The Flight Service specialist looked out the window toward the 206, and casually asked me if it was mine. I answered “yes”. He said “well, you might want to go down and check on it, because the fuel truck which is fuelling it is on fire.” Huh!? Sure enough, I looked out, and the driver had the hood up, and flames were belching out of the engine room. We sure moved fast getting downstairs and out to the plane.
The driver had already emptied his fire extinguisher, and the fire still raged. We pushed the 206 well away from the action, and it was thankfully unaffected. The airport fire department soon arrived, and foamed the fuel truck, and that was that. No fuel.
After several hours another fuel truck arrived, and fuelled us. We were ready to go, and it was dusk…. Never mind, it was a beautifully clear evening, and I knew the route well. I was though, now regretting lending my portable nav/comm., as it would be rather handy for night flying in my otherwise Nordo Cessna 206. Oh well, hindsight will be 20/20 later!
So we launch off. I’m flying alone in the 206, following the boss and JD in the [same] IFR equipped Cessna 182. After three quarters of an hour, it was completely dark. I was following off and behind the 182, keeping the best distance I could judge from only the two nav lights and beacon. The plane itself was invisible in the dark. During one of the routine instrument checks, with the flashlight in my teeth, because I’d found that the instrument lights did not work, I noticed that my right fuel was below half. This would seem normal, except that I had taken off, and run up until now on the left only, and they do not cross feed! Fuel leak! I now selected the right tank to use what remained there, before it was lost overboard. This was not a serious problem though, as I had lots of fuel anyway. After a while, I felt the sensation of turning circles. This sensation is known to affect perception while flying instruments only. I paid more attention to my control inputs. Sure enough, if I held the controls straight, I went straight, but the 182 went away, and following it was one of my objectives! I now paid more attention to my own navigation rather than just blindly following them. The first thing I noticed was that we were at 750 feet altitude, which was alarming, because nearby Georgian Bay is at 581! Why are we less than 200 feet AGL? I turned on the landing light – snow! And lots of it. Obviously they were trying to remain VFR, though who knows why, ‘cause it was too dark to see the ground anyway! The next thing was that we were going north, instead of the south, which was our route. I surmised that they had decided to return to Sudbury, as there were no other useable airports in the area. Then we were turning east, then south, then east again…. Turning “S” turns for no good reason. All I could do was follow, I had no ability to navigate.
After what seemed an eternity, the dim lights of a town became visible through the snow. We obviously both saw them at the same time, because we both headed straight for them. Bracebridge. We’d (really they’d – I was just following) found Muskoka airport. Once in the circuit, we were clear of snow, and could see south forever. I though about keeping going, but then reminded myself of my uncertain fuel situation, and decided to land for fuel.
Once we both fuelled, and checked the weather (which was reported as just fine to the south) we elected to keep going. So we took off again. As I could follow the highway now, and was much faster, I elected to head home on my own. By the time I got to Orillia, I was back into the snow, as thick as ever! I followed the highway with great precision a few hundred feet up. They don’t put towers right in the middle of highways!
I got through, and continued south, with the city of Toronto now in sight, our home aerodrome was assured!
Now the runway lights there were now electric, and powered by the reliable little Honda generator, which the boss’s wife had left running for us. Sure enough, there were the lights! Excellent! I slipped in for a perfect landing, and was very relieved to be safely on the ground at home. On short final, I saw their nights 10 miles back, so I knew that they’d made it through the Orillia snow as well. I parked, and sat back to relax from a stressful flight.
After a few minutes, I saw them come overhead, and felt the final relief. They circled for a while, then some more, and more. I could not figure out why they were not landing. I went over to my parked C150, to call them on the radio. At the same moment I heard a stream of profanity come over the radio, I clued in; the generator had quit, and there were no runway lights! There was a break in the tirade just long enough for me to report that I would get the generator going again. Problem… It needed gas. The gas truck was there, but the boss had the keys in his pocket, so it would not be offering any gas for the generator ‘till he was down!
I ended up sump draining enough gas from my 150 to get the generator running long enough for them to make it in safely. That night was the point at which we decided that permanent runway light power, and ARCAL was needed. The final connections began the following week!
But, I still like night flying, I am just waaaay more cautious than I used to be!
Thanks AdamFrisch for the great story.
For me, I prefer to fly at night and do it a lot. Mostly I do this in the Cirrus SR22 with Perspective Vision and all the bells and whistles. However, I also do it sometimes in a PA28 and had once an alternator failure while enroute to Caen at night. I had to still use the PCL system to activate the runway lights. It was after 2 at night LT and managed to turn the lights on and could land ok. Since then my preference to night flying is with the Cirrus with 2 alternators and more options and better situational awareness.
There are the usual places where you can go at night such as Luxemburg or Köln-Bonn Int’l for refueling or most airports in France such as Reims-Prunay (with the hotel right there on the airport) or Lyon-Bron (with the Kyriad around the corner of the GA apron).
Finding a runway environment with good approach lights at night is easier. However, flying to e.g. Reims-Prunay at night I click 5 times for the intensive runway lights, then when I have spotted the runway, I turn the runway lights down by clicking 3 times on the radio. Then the edge lights merge better with the environment.
