The other day, when flying home from work (as an airline pax) I broke my habit of sleeping throughout the flight. Instead, I looked outside the window in awe and watched as we progressed after take-off from nasty weather in Hamburg through a thick layer of cloud to the slightly surreal clear sky on top with the sun just setting. I’m sure you (the average Euroga IFR pilot) know what I’m talking about.
Of course, as I was watching and dreaming, I thought “Ah – I want this. I want to surf on top of clouds like this…”.
That raised three questions about where to go with my flying (not necessarily in the very near future). The first one is here, the others will follow in separate threads.
What’s the usability of the VFR night rating. Those who have it (and this might be difficult to judge if you’re IFR), how much do you use it?
I see two aspects: One is flying deliberately at night, for the joy of it. The other one is the increased time margin (until your typical German airfield closes, of course) when returning from a trip. As a VFR day only pilot, you need to plan meticulously to be back before the defined night time.
On the other hand, I’ve heard people saying they rarely use their night qualification because of the imminent dangers (though in my view, it’s comparable with mountain flying and flying over water – risks I don’t mind taking) and the increased difficulty (i.e. it’s less enjoyable due to increased workload).
So – is it a waste of money and effort (although not much, anyway) or is it worth it? Do you avoid night flying like the plague or do you enjoy it? I could do it this winter or next, or I could spend the budget getting checked out on other airplane types etc. or do one more nice, expensive trip.
I’m a pretty low time renter in the UK. I did the Night rating during my PPL training and the IMC/IR-R immediately after getting my PPL.
I’d say for the amount of time it takes it’s almost a no brainer just for the extra time flexibility it gives you. Especially here in the UK you can get pretty nice days in winter where night starts at 4-5pm. For me at least the legal aspect (and safety if not trained of course) of flying at night without a rating would be far more worrying than pushing it close on airport closing times.
I find flying in the dark is a totally different experience and it’s certainly worth giving it a try just for that (and to see if you like it).
That said, it is a lot easier to get disoriented at night, and I find my instrument training very useful. Even on a clear day the ground can sometimes offer up little attitude reference so it’s useful to have the training and confidence to fly by the instruments alone. And similar for navigation – things like roads are very distinct at night which helps – but also one road looks much like another so it’s easy to get confused.
But as Peter likes to say the whole IFR/VFR thing is a bit artificial – flying at night is good training for using the instruments a bit more without being totally reliant on them as you are in a cloud. When I got the rating in the UK (winter 2012), technically all UK night flight was IFR anyway (and you didn’t need any sort of instrument rating to fly IFR OCAS), and there was far more emphasis on using instruments and other aids (PAPI) during training than there was for my initial PPL (which I was doing at the same time).
So – is it a waste of money and effort (although not much, anyway) or is it worth it?
If you enjoy it, it is worth it. That simple 
Flying (VFR) in a clear night can be wonderful, even more so with moonshine and over snow covered countryside. That is like flying on a different planet. But it can turn scary and unpleasant quickly with lowering cloudbase, maybe some rain or drizzle, no ground visible, no sky visible, no horizon, no obstacles visible, plenty of optical illusions (eg.streetlights diagonally through your field of view that give you the illusion to be in a turn). Plus a high degree of alertness regarding unusual engine sounds or instruments showing anything else but green…
Regarding useability: as written, in order to make it safe and pleasant, you really need good weather. Much better weather than for day VFR unless you are really capabable to fly on instruments. Some neighboring countries to Germany do not permit VFR night (e.g. the Netherlands), so border crossing flights many not be possible. Outside the traffic pattern, a flight plan is required which must be filed in advance and along an acceptable routing, so some planning is required. So in real life, I doubt that you will have many occasions when you will really benefit from that rating.
I did my NQ, and although I have my IMCr, I didnt fly night IFR as I didnt feel suitably experienced with minimal NQ training. However, cloud can be impossible to see, so you need your wits about you more if you want to stay strictly VFR/VMX. Also, I was using club aircraft at a different airfield to my own, not using my own A/C. To be honest the cost of renting, combined with the poor quality and rattling aircraft put me off. I wasnt too bothered about the single-engine issue, some will refuse to fly at night only in a multi. At my own base in my own A/C I’d have used the qualuification more as it is really satisfying but there was no night lighting. Certainly in the UK there are limited decent places to utilise it so I dont renew it anymore.
I would not fly at night unless I was instrument capable – pilot and aircraft.
Otherwise, it is quite easy to do a “Kennedy” i.e. fly into a chunk of fog or cloud which you could not see in front of you, and lose control.
That is, unless you limit yourself to trivial local flights, in areas where there are lots of ground lights and the vis is good, and there isn’t much risk of the temp and the dewpoint meeting up (as the air cools in the evening i.e. fog) before you are back down on the ground.
That said, night flying is wonderful and I would definitely recommend doing it – if only to discover that you do need to be instrument capable
You can forget dead reckoning nav at night – unless the whole exercise is rigged to be between blindingly obvious well lit landmarks (which in PPL night training it usually will be).
I rarely do it (have ~25hrs night out of about 1800) because most airfields shut too early. When I was doing the FAA PPL and CPL logbook night time collection, I was staying in various dodgy motels at Southend and Cardiff (the southern UK’s only “kind of H24” airports, with Gatwick etc costing 500+ quid), and once at Norwich (memorable because the security dicks there confiscated my toothpaste on the way to the plane ). I think Oxford and Bournemouth also offer some usable evening hours.
I used to do the 3+3 circuits at sunset+1hr to renew the FAA night passenger carriage rights but don’t bother anymore since the JAA IR includes those for free (for an N-reg, in the country of the IR issue, only).
The main issue with night flying here in Austria (and I suppose in many other countries) is, that comparatively few airfields have lighting and even fewer (!) stay open after ECET. If they do, they tend to charge ridiculously high overtime fees. Same with starting early in the morning – that’s a massive hindrance to the everyday usefulness of flying …
Some neighboring countries to Germany do not permit VFR night (e.g. the Netherlands), so border crossing flights many not be possible
Isn’t this going to change with SERA?
The main issue with night flying here in Austria (and I suppose in many other countries) is, that comparatively few airfields have lighting and even fewer (!) stay open after ECET. If they do, they tend to charge ridiculously high overtime fees. Same with starting early in the morning – that’s a massive hindrance to the everyday usefulness of flying …
This wouldn’t be an issue for me, as my home base has lighting and is open until 22:00 local. It would allow me both leisure night flights in the (generally well-lit!) local area (Rhein/Ruhr) and being more relaxed when returning from day trips. Currently, proper day trips are out of the question with the early sunset.
In that sense, it’s not a factor for me how many other airfields other the one that i fly out of are open at night.
Germany is great for night flying. I do it occasionally and I love it!
The mid-size airports all have great opening hours (08:00-22:00 or better) and landing prices are reasonable.
I went to Bremen EDDW last weekend, flying at FL070 during sunset. It’s magic :-)
You need to realize that the abbreviation NVFR is misleading. It is essentially an instrument flight operation! In darkness you will lose most of the visual references. There’s no horizon. You can enter clouds really easy because you don’t see them.
I do night flying, but always on an IFR plan and I fly only to airports that are equipped with an instrument approach and proper lighting.
My home base Lelystad EHLE has no centerline or approach lighting, and getting in there at night feels like landing in a black hole. Add some crosswind and it becomes really difficult!
EHLE at night:
What I usually do is depart around sunset, fly to a nice city, spend the night there, and come back next day. I’ve done a lot of German/French cities in the range of about 200NM ;-)
I very much like to fly at night. Just accept that the scheduling ratio for NVFR is 10%
I disagree however that Austria is difficult for NVFR. There are lots of accessible airports with long opening hours (to 22 or 23 LT), such as Salzburg, Innsbruck, Linz, Graz… The only thing is that you need to stay within controlled airspace (class E or lower) and that is impossible in the western part for normally aspirated planes
There are lots of accessible airports with long opening hours (to 22 or 23 LT)
Only the international airports LOWI, LOWS, LOWL, LOWK, LOWG and LOWW (the latter one being too expensive for most piston GA) have such opening hours. Not much for an entire country.
