Steve6443 wrote:
One thing you should however be aware of – flying at night means you must submit a flight plan using IFR waypoints before departing – in Germany, if you take off and discover that, due to unexpectedly strong headwinds, you will be landing after SS+30 (or, under SERA, after the sun has set by more than 6 degrees under the horizon) you cannot simply continue onwards and ask FIS to open a Night VFR plan, you will have legal action taken against you. You would need to land at an airfield en route, submit the plan, then depart to your destination….
Good point. I don’t find it hard, though, on any flight that may end after the end of civil evening twilight, to simply file a flight plan. In most cases, it will have been an international flight anyway, so flightplan filed. And I habitually use IFR waypoints when planning because they are most straightforward to type into the Garmin onboard kit. 
This would mean that we were short of 10 minutes. Flying downwind at an international airport at 500ft AGL in and out of clouds, another 10 minutes were required. So I told my student: Why not call this a day and just enter those 10 minutes in the logbook. Nobody will notice. He answered: “God will!
The trick would be to taxi really slowly ;) At a large international airport, it’s easy to lose 10 minutes taxiing…especially if you taxi slowly….or if you really need to, get some taxiing practice at night by requesting a complicated route
When I did it, a proper cross country wasn’t possible, as we were confined to SVFR within a control zone. So the cross country consisted of various ways of navigating across at 10nm radius control zone. It got a bit boring after awhile!
For me, it was a logistical nightmare to organise the instructor, aircraft and get them all to an airport that allowed night flight. I’d gotten 2 hours of night flight previously, and decided to do the remainder of the 3 hours in one go. To be honest, on a good weather night, at a properly light airport, it was not challenging. I think most of the 5 hours will be spend finding things to do :) I’d do as much as possible within one night.
As for using it to help you avoid being under pressure to get back before the end of VFR, I’m not sure it actually works so well like that, because you need at least one night landing in the previous 90 days if you’re carrying passengers. So if you’re carrying a passenger, then unless you’ve done some recent night flight, it’s not really of any legal use.
dublinpilot wrote:
As for using it to help you avoid being under pressure to get back before the end of VFR, I’m not sure it actually works so well like that, because you need at least one night landing in the previous 90 days if you’re carrying passengers. So if you’re carrying a passenger, then unless you’ve done some recent night flight, it’s not really of any legal use.
You need to do 4 trips/year on average that end at night. I think I can do that – and even add some more practice night flights in the pattern for good measure.
Patrick wrote:
You need to do 4 trips/year on average that end at night.
That’s not correct.
The night takeoff currency requirement makes it difficult to be always night current.
IR holders are exempted from this requirement.
IR holders are exempted from this requirement
JAA/EASA IR holders are exempted from this requirement, not FAA IR holders 
Also FAA licensed pilots need to do three takeoffs and three landings within the past 90 days to carry passengers at night (sunset+30 mins) and those 3+3 need to be done after sunset+1hr. This is a lot harder than the JAA scenario because nearly all pilots over here do their night flights immediately after official sunset when it is still not properly dark.
JAA/EASA IR holders are exempted from this requirement, not FAA IR holders
Yes, but I have found that I would usually only fly at night when returning home, i.e. in Germany. And when in Germany, I can fly my N-reg. using the privileges of my German license. So, no FAA night currency required in this case.
lenthamen wrote:
IR holders are exempted from this requirement.
Before I got the IR, I found it to be impossible to maintain NVFR currency. Until today I never undertake any planned night flights (VFR or IFR). I do it every now and then when things just turn that way but I never intentionally depart on such a flight. Most of the time (full moon CAVOK is not NVFR really) you’d be finished with an engine failure. Also you don’t easily see hazardous weather.
A few weeks ago I flew into the night over the desert in Egypt, uninhabited land with no light sources. The desert looks smooth from the top but it’s rocky. I knew that an engine failure would be the end and it was a very unpleasant flight. Not something I would ever enjoy. Maybe in a SET or ME airplane.
dublinpilot wrote:
The trick would be to taxi really slowly ;) At a large international airport, it’s easy to lose 10 minutes taxiing…
@what_next could have asked the ground controller to give them a sightseeing tour of the airport :)
I did my high flying from LSZH. Between 6 and 7pm (local), the airport is pretty busy with arrivals, so I spent about 1 hour of my night time holding at the holding point for RWY 28. That was a pretty cheap way to do the night rating, because that time counted for block time but was free of charge as only flight time counts
lenthamen wrote:
That’s not correct
Thanks for pointing that out! I’ve read this before but what sticked to my memory was “one landing in 90 days”. The take-off requirement indeed makes it harder in the sense that before embarking on such a trip, you’d have to do one training circuit at night.
Peter wrote:
nearly all pilots over here do their night flights immediately after official sunset when it is still not properly dark
I don’t understand that. Flights after official sunset when it is not properly dark – i.e. before end of civil evening twilight – are not night flights.
In the UK (and Ireland) before SERA night used to be defined as SS+30 minutes. CET might not have arrived by sunset+30 mins.
Probably makes little difference now that the defination has changed.
