Yes – a great story.
I would never wish for more regulation or for a more expensive PPL but I would not allow somebody I care about to fly at night until they were completely able to do instrument flight including flying an instrument approach of a type available in the relevant area, and definitely an ILS.
The margin between “UK style night flying” (loads of lights around) and totally losing all references can be quite thin.
You can fly into a cloud quite easily too, at night. In daytime this is difficult to do unless you are messing about in very poor vis already.
During my night training the instructor and myself got quite lost. We could see several towns but could not work out which was which. That was over Sussex! At that point I realised that there is only one way to play that game: instrument flight capability, and the prohibited 3-letter word (starts with “G” and ends with “S”) 
I find that like many things in flying it depends on practice. Coming back from Germany a few weeks ago with GPS, Synthetic vision etc on clear night I couldn’t see Oxford’s runways. I knew where it should be but was not visual. I had to overfly and join a circuit to get my proper bearings.
Runways can be difficult to spot unless aligned with the final approach path as the lights can be quite directional.
Night flying I think requires slightly more confidence and currency than day flying, but once you have that, the decisions are not hugely different from SE IFR in limiting conditions.
I would highly recommend it (I wish I could go flying this evening) as the views one can get from night flight are absolutely stunning all round.
" the prohibited 3-letter word (starts with “G” and ends with “S”)"
MEL includes 3 GPS for night, 2 for day as time/distance/heading navigation is not one of my strong points :)
MEL meaning My Equipment List!
Thanks for all the feedback and stories!
I’ve decided to give night flying a go. I will take some lessons with an instructor to get confident with flying in the dark. I will plan my flights on the nights that the moon is shining. That will give me a lot more options in case I have to make a forced landing. Okay, I might not spot the ditch in a field, but at least I will be able to spot the field. In my view, the chances of survival are quite high if I can get it on the ground in one piece flying at some low airspeed.
Since I am flying for fun, I’ll takeoff only if the weather is fair. I’m doing it for the view, after all :-)
I already have a portable radio with a headset adapter. I will connect it to a spare headset so in case of an emergency I just switch headsets to be back in the air.
I have an IR so will fly on a IFR FPL at night. I consider that safer than VFR, because of the general higher altitude and ATC keeping an eye on you.
Since hypoxia affects night vision already at low pressure altitudes, I will use oxygen right from the start (Mountain High EDS Night mode).
Thanks for the tip to carry three flash lights. I will order a couple of them (with the red filter).
In case of a total power failure at night I carry a high quality head mounted light; Zebralight make some of the best ones – [example](http://www.zebralight.com/H502c-High-CRI-Neutral-White-AA-Flood-Headlamp-_p_95.html). These were hard to get in the UK and I ordered a couple straight from the USA.
I see their new ones are AA battery powered which is better than the [one I have](http://www.zebralight.com/H31Fw-Floody-Headlamp-CR123-Neutral-White-ship-to-US-customers-only_p_52.html) which uses the much more expensive CR123 battery. OTOH a lithium CR123 will have a longer shelf life than an AA…
Their current ones are said to be OK with the Sanyo Eneloop NIMH AA batteries which I use elsewhere and which are really outstanding in their stable output voltage (they hold it up till just about exhausted) and low self discharge. Much better than normal rechargeable batteries which go flat in a month or two. However any emergency-use lamp should use very long shelf life batteries and none of those (in common use) are rechargeable.
Not sure I would use red filter lamps. I did that a while ago and found some features on the CAA charts were completely invisible. Whether this matters depends on whether you use charts, etc.
Peter, I fly a DA40 and it has a non-rechargeable battery which powers the AI and flood light.
It’s the red emergency button left of the ASI. Even with a total power failure I should still have cockpit lighting, but of course having a backup flashlight never hurts…
Damn what a brilliant idea! Have an emergency (LED of course) lamp mounted in the central overhead trim, with an externally accessible [battery holder](http://bulgin.co.uk/Products/BatteryHolders/batts_images/BSX0016_400px.jpg) for say a CR123.
One could utilise the existing Socata lamps which are up in that trim but they are normal lamps which draw a ton of power.
Hmmm… interesting.
It looks like your DA40 has a battery backup for the instrument lights also. Or at least has lights which shine at the instruments, if not powering their internal instrument lights. The latter is not hard to do but one would need a big battery, because instrument lights are normal lamps. I think mine draw about 1-2A.
Aero Enhancements has apparently gone out of business, or maybe just out of retail business (?), but their panel overlays incorporated battery backup instrument lighting that was good for many hours on a little 9V battery.
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