Lesson 17 - First Night Flight

Flight Time: 1.9 hours
Total Time: 27.2 hours

I'd love to have more photographs for your from today's flight, but today I took my first night flight, and getting nice crisp photos in a plane that's moving over 100 mph is easier said than done.

I pulled into Boeing Field just as someone else was taxiing my plane back into the parking area. I waited around a few minutes for them to get their things together before beginning my pre-flight inspection of the plane.

As with most of the rest of night-flying, pre-flight inspection at night is a whole different ball game. Because the parking area isn't lit, you have to use a flashlight to see whatever you're looking at. Surprisingly, I found this to be better than inspections during the day, since the light helps you focus more intently on the section of the plane you're inspecting.

There was one other effect of using the flashlight for the pre-flight inspection - Ed could tell exactly what I was looking at as I went through the steps.

Today's flight took us to the east towards Bremerton, where we practiced some navigation (I was able to find the airport because I remembered that the bay near Bremerton makes points at the airport like a finger).

Stop-and-goes, though, were a different story altogether. Maneuvering in the traffic pattern in a rural area with few lights is much more challenging than maneuvering around Boeing Field which is covered in lights.

I found that I had to rely on my instruments much more, because without lights there was no way to easily tell how high I was other than my altimeter. I found myself mentally thanking any cars that passed by as I moved around the pattern, because they gave me an instant reference point of how high I was above the ground. During final approach, I usually needed to add more power to maintain altitude (sometimes too much altitude) until I was over the runway, since the ground was just a big black hole.

Maintaining the correct heading and square pattern was also more of a challenge because of the lack of reference points on the ground and I found myself leaning forward to better spot the horizon each time until reaching pattern altitude. Once I got more comfortable relying on the instruments for my heading, it got much easier, and I could look out the windows towards the airport to verify my location.

Judging when to begin flaring was also much more difficult in the dark because it was harder to judge my height above the ground, even with landing lights. This actually helped me a bit and by extending my flare more than normal I found I was landing much more smoothly. I'll have to remember that next time I fly during the day.

After a few stop-and-goes at Bremerton, Ed had me navigate to the southeast to find the Tacoma Narrows Airport. I ended up turning too far to the south, mistaking the lights from Tacoma for south Seattle. Fortunately Ed corrected me and I was able to make my way in the right direction with little deviation.

We practiced a few stop-and-goes out of Tacoma, which unlike Bremerton had an active tower at the time. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, Tacoma also has a 300 foot cliff rising up from the water to the beginning of the runway, so I made sure to stay higher than I needed to until I was sure I had passed it.

I was getting more comfortable in the pattern with each progressive stop-and-go, so Ed, in true CFI spirit, had me simulate an engine out on downwind. I ended up extending my downwind too far and didn't have enough altitude to clear the cliff, so I had to add power to get back on the glide slope. That's one more lesson learned the hard way: In engine outs, cut the downwind as short as you can--especially with a long runway--then once you know you've got the runway made, drop in full flaps and slip if you need to in order to get down. It's easier to lose altitude than it is to gain altitude with no power.

From Tacoma we flew back to Bremerton to practice a simulated electrical failure. Most untowered airports have automatic, pilot controlled lighting. With this system, you tap your transmit button a few times to turn the lighting on and up to the level you need to see. Without electricity, your radios don't work, so you can't turn on the lights.

The lighting system had turned off while we were in Tacoma, so we flew in to a darkened airport. I entered the downwind leg, misjudged my turn to base and came in sloppily to my final leg. By this point it was pretty clear that I wasn't going to be able to land, since I couldn't see the runway, and only really knew that I could land within a hundred feet or so to either side of it. At that point, I clicked my transmit button three times and the runway lit up. I discovered that I was about 100 feet to the left of the runway, so I maneuvered to the right and put the plane down fairly easily now that I could actually see my target.

After that last stop-and-go at Bremerton, we headed back to West Point in north Seattle, so we could get the straight in approach to Boeing Field from the north. This gave us an amazing view of downtown Seattle as we came in to land. I remarked to Ed as we flew past downtown that moments like that were the reason I'm learning to fly. I'll have to find a way to get some decent pictures of Seattle from the sky at night, because there really isn't anything like it.