chflyer wrote:
It really depends on where you fly. In Switzerland the topography increases the risk significantly for VFR cross country travel.
SERA requires IFR minimum altitudes for night VFR, except in the traffic circuit. I take it that Switzerland – like Norway – allows lower minimum altitudes, otherwise night VFR would be pointless in much of Switzerland.
Airborne_Again wrote:
allows lower minimum altitudes
Yes, it’s the same as VFR day, but only when ceiling is min 2000 feet and visibility is minimum 10 km. IMO talking about different risks and VFRN in the same sentence is very hypothetical. VFR night is higher risk than VFR day period, because there’s no way to see usable emergency landing spots if the engine should quit. The only mitigation is a chute.
Having said that, you have to be an extremely cold fish to fly VFR at night through the valleys with a 2000 feet ceiling. It’s hardly survivable, and the reason the regulation is there is to allow for flying around the coast. This wouldn’t be possible with standard SERA, thus almost no VFR night would be possible with clouds. With a clear blue black sky, it’s a different situation entirely.
LeSving wrote:
VFR night is higher risk than VFR day period, because there’s no way to see usable emergency landing spots if the engine should quit. The only mitigation is a chute.
Sure, but FlawlessFlare mentioned CFIT as concern and not engine failure.
Last time I checked, there was no night VFR flying permitted in the Netherlands, so I’m not sure NL is your best bet for this.
May I recommend checking some of the (from the NL perspective) close by cities in Germany? One recommendation (24 h airport) would be Paderborn EDLP, where I flew for many years. Another one is Essen-Mülheim EDLE, which has several clubs and commercial schools. I did my night rating there. This area also provides ample opportunities to practice actual night cross country flights to a destination, as there are so many options around (beyond the two mentioned, you can at least expect to use Münster-Osnabrück, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Mönchengladbach… And also, for a mini vacation, there is lots to do and see on the ground in this area.
Night VFR is alive and well in the Netherlands
FlawlessFlare wrote:
To give a different perspective
There are many reasons for doing the night rating.
One of them is a very immersive experience of flying with all these lights. One other is simply not having a restriction in the IR.
One very valid reason is to be able to make full use of daylight. The latter was actually my reason for doing the night rating: you can actually plan to arrive at nightfall or even some minutes later, because if things take longer (which they often do) then it doesn’t matter. I even filed flight plans during the flight when it turned out that I won’t arrive before SS+30. It’s a lot of flexibility, without increasing the risk greatly. But even without ever touching night (after having obtained the rating) you can stretch your days by maybe one hour with the rating – which is actually a lot in winter – because you don’t have to assure to arrive at SS+30 (which is civil twilight now).
So doing the rating doesn’t necessarily mean going into the night – but still using it like depicted above.
Anyway. I love flying at night.
Indeed.
One may not fly much at night (most airports are shut anyway) but you get a lot of flexibility for getting back home.
Not long ago, the IR was impossible without the night rating, which in turn was impossible if you were CVD. The UK CAA did some under the table stuff on that but I don’t think many other countries did so.
Peter_Mundy wrote:
Night VFR is alive and well in the Netherlands
I stand corrected – my information seems to have been outdated, as it was not allowed in the past. Apologies.
UdoR wrote:
One very valid reason is to be able to make full use of daylight.
While I also love flying at night for the atmosphere it brings, what Udo describes is the actual real life use case. If your homebase is suitably equipped, it allows GA trips without having to monitor the clock and counting the minutes by when you have to be back home after, say, inner at your location. I used to get quite nervous towards the end of the day – that is gone with the night rating.
