Let’s say METARs and TAFs are CAVOK from Austria to northern Italy, there’s a full moon, and almost no wind. Would a night transit of Brenner be legal at VFR levels (9000 feet or so)?
The question is hypothetical, not something I’m planning to do with this lunar cycle. 
A METAR can show CAVOK and you can still be under an overcast. And a TAF can show flyable weather, but the weather can degrade below what you would want for VFR flight (and this would legally not be reflected in the TAF). So the real question is if the night VFR weather conditions are met all along the route, which is the only thing that counts from a legal standpoint. So you’d rather want to look at the GAFOR route, but I have never checked if they even edit one at night.
You must be able to maintain two-way radio communications along your route though, and you may have to fly quite high. The night VFR minima according to SERA are:
That may take you up to 12’000 ft or something alike along the Brenner route, so you’d definitely want to use oxygen at night as well. And Innsbruck would need to clear you through their class D.
mind the mountains, in some places the Brenner route gets pretty narrow ;) That is, if you see them at all. And you need to trust your engine.
My Q would be why would you want to fly the Alps at night.
Obviously a proper night is 100% IMC so you would need to go IFR at an IFR MEA.
With a full moon and little or no haze, all should be visible, and I can see one could get some spectacular photos, with a really modern high-ISO DSLR. However a correctly exposed moonlight photo looks almost exactly the same as a correctly exposed sunlight photo so this will be worth doing only if you get the moon itself in the picture, and then the moon will be way too bright hence such photos are invariably montages.
Why would a night flight like that be illegal? Is there something in SERA? I do recally some national regs e.g. an ADF had to be carried.
@Peter
The only reason to try something like this (unlikely in the first place!) would be for the spectacular moonlight views.
Sure. Are there any airports that are open? I would struggle doing that leg due to that alone.
The big Italian ones are open and IIRC have avgas but are pricey.
On the french side there’s a good bunch you can use. (Valence, Grenoble, Lyon bron (these are just the ones I looked at for skiing))
On a good night with plenty of moon that’s probably safer than not int the night, day IMC with low ceilings. I would only make it on a route I’d knew well (because of things like cables).
In the 1970s the DGAC commissioned night VFR landing tests for passenger flights at Courchevel and Megève – where they even tried a “SIDAC” instrument approach (whatever that is). For some reason it did not gain approval – I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
Maybe now’s the time to revisit the idea, with the help of “Galileo”…
Peter wrote:
My Q would be why would you want to fly the Alps at night.
Because, on a full moon night in winter, it is extremely beautiful!
