Last Thursday I did my first night flight, and it was awesome.
I need to do something like 10 full-stop night landings as part of my training. Mac can’t fly at night for personal reasons, so he told me to ask John about it, which I did. And so Thursday night John and I flew at night for the first time.
By way of context, “night” is defined by the FAA as starting after EECT (end of evening civil twilight – which is about 30 minutes after sunset), and finishing at BMCT (beginning morning civil twilight – about 30 minutes before sunrise).
I will tell you, I was nervous. So nervous that I forgot how to start the engine in the plane! Even looking at the checklist, I couldn’t remember what to do next. LOL!
That aside, it was great.
We did a simple flight up the coast and back at 1,500 feet, just as an introduction to (a) what things on the ground looked like at night, and (b) how utterly horrible it is to turn away from land, into the vastness and void, and lose the horizon and all sense of reality. It was truly a learning experience.
Fortunately I had done a couple of instrument take offs with Mac in inclement weather way back when, so I felt somewhat comfortable taking off. But I wasn’t prepared for how easy it actually turned out to be, nor for how spectacular it is taking off at night. It was like that scene in Peter Pan where Peter takes them out the bedroom window for the first time and all of London lies lit up and spread out beneath them. As the plane left the runway, there was that same sense of the lit up world opening up and spreading out. Really stunning!
Once I leveled out at 1,500 feet we noticed there was a slight marine layer out over the ocean and along the coastline. Not thick enough to turn us back, but noticeable and causing a little bit of haziness.
So we flew up the coast, and John had me spot various things on the ground: the Del Mar racetrack, Palomar airport, and so on. It was just to get my perception shifted over to what things look like at night. And in particular he had me scouting for airport beacons, because you can never be too sure about where to go if you need to make an emergency landing.
While I wasn’t doing that, I was watching the traffic lights flow and seeing the patterns of humanity outlined in lights. It was the first time I had that sense of what Antoine de Saint-Exupery was trying to describe in his books about flying.
Anyway, 0nce we got to Oceanside, John had me turn out to sea and turn the cockpit lights down. He wanted me to experience the disorientation of no horizon. Despite the low lighting in the cockpit, however, I could still see the altimeter and altitude indicator, and I never felt too disoriented. Not that I would have wanted to fly for a long period like that, but I could see it was doable.
But then we turned back to shore, and I had a momentary flash of complete and total disorientation. I didn’t know where I was, which way was up, or what my name was. It was bad. Really bad. And I don’t really know why it happened. You read about it in books, but to experience it is something else entirely. And what made it particularly bad was that at 1,500 feet there was really no margin for error.
And then, just as quickly as it had happened, it went away. I don’t know why; perhaps because the shore lights came into view. Whatever the cause, it was a reminder that flying is not the same thing as taking a Sunday drive.
The cruise back down the coast was uneventful, but I was very nervous about landing. I was actually nervous about even finding Montgomery Field.
As it turned out, there was no cause for concern. Despite the darkness, I could easily find the field and position myself for entering the pattern. And I easily entered and negotiated the pattern.
The landing itself was a dream. At Montgomery Field they have these lights (as do all decent airports) called Visual Approach Slope Indicators (VASI) that basically guide you in on the glide slope. If you see all white, you’re too high; all red, you’re too low. But if you see an even mixture of red and white, you’re spot on. (John’s mnemonic is “White over white, flying all night; red over red, gonna be dead”.)
After I turned on to final, I immediately got on the proper glide slope, and we sailed right in. And it was perfect; we could barely feel the bump of touchdown.
So that was that. I think flying at night was my last big new thing. From here on out I believe it’s just going to be extending what I know (e.g., longer cross country flights), refining what I know (e.g., ground reference maneuvers), and repeating what I know (e.g., night flying).
Onward…
Wind, Sand, and Stars 