Risks of night flying

[YYZSaabGuy]

Yes PilotDar somehow in T.C's way of evaluating human life it is O.K. kill people who are not paying for the flight but against the rules to kill people who pay for the flight.

Makes one feal real warm and fuzzy knowing they are looking after us.

You're messing with us, right? You do see the inherent contradiction in looking for a government agency to regulate and "look after" people on the one hand, while at the same time kvetching (as you do in the Aviation Medical Fees thread) about the resulting "bloated government", "socialism" and user pay charges which generate the funding to do so?

[white_knuckle_flyer]

So T.C. is of the opinion that single engine at night is to high a risk to allow paying passengers to be carried, but non paying passengers are expendable?

Interesting way of thinking.

Doesn't graduated licensing in Ontario work on a similar premise ? As a newly minted driver, you are in many ways an accident waiting to happen. For that reason, there are restrictions on the G1 and G2 to minimize catastrophic losses.

I would hate for the night rating to morph into some form of IR since I would likely never pursue it. I am interested in completing my night rating for one reason only ~ to extend the number of hours I can rent a plane and go for a flight. I am likely a renter for life, and day after day, every summer, I lament how the sky at 8:00 p.m. is beautifully calm and empty. As your average renter, I would already have to be back on the ground. With my NR, off I go for an hour or two of fun while the non-rated rabble look up at me with great envy. ( Drama intentional)

[ahramin]

I did a couple hundred hours of night VFR in BC before getting my instrument rating. Never had an issue or a scary moment, but it's obvious the huge downfall of night flying is weather. In daylight you can choose to continue into bad weather and kill yourself, at night that choice is removed as you don't know it's coming. The only defense I have found is understanding the local weather in the area you are flying in, and only flying when there is no chance of encountering low cloud along your route of flight. Around here it might look like: OVC50, 5/M5 ... great. 10FEW, 20SCT, OVC50, 5/3 ... no way.

When it comes to GA, I'm more of a fair weather flyer these days, and don't often do much of a weather check beyond looking out the window. At night it's public forecasts, radar, IR, GFA, TAFs, METARs, and a call to the FIC for a briefing.

[B208]

Yes PilotDar somehow in T.C's way of evaluating human life it is O.K. kill people who are not paying for the flight but against the rules to kill people who pay for the flight.

Makes one feal real warm and fuzzy knowing they are looking after us.

TC has a mandate to protect people who don't know, (and aren't expected to know), the risks. It has less of a mandate to protect trained pilots from themselves.

[Cat Driver]

TC has a mandate to protect people who don't know, (and aren't expected to know), the risks. It has less of a mandate to protect trained pilots from themselves.

Cat this thread is about the risk of night flying and at no time was TC noted by the originator of this thread. If you would like to start another thread about TC and their rules on night flying, be my guest,

Bandaid

[CpnCrunch]

Getting back on topic, in the UK you used to have to fly at least 1000ft above any obstacle within 5nm. They've now removed this restriction, but IMO it's a good idea to fly at least 1000ft above the ground at night.

I was looking for info on that Bar XH crash a few years ago, and as far as I can tell it looks like a CFIT (TC never released a report, but in the CADOR it has a "CFIT" keyword). Perhaps if they had been cruising at a reasonable height that instructor might be alive today.

If you have an Aera GPS it will give you terrain warnings, and you can get synthetic vision on the 696/796 devices. It's a pretty small price to pay for extra safety if you regularly fly at night over sparse terrain.

[PilotDAR]

If you have an Aera GPS it will give you terrain warnings,

Yeah, generally they're nice, but not foolproof. This is me, flying toward a 350 foot (above water) island shoreline in central Quebec. Though you can't make it out on the GPS, there is no reference to terrain warning, nor that island at all. Similarly at the Atlantic coast of Labrador, there was rather poor database accuracy in the Aera 500. I was too busy watching where I was going to actually document it though....

At night, you'd never want to be down that low, and relying on terrain warnings to keep you safe, but still, the databases are not foolproof. You'd want to be referring only to the chart quadrant altitudes for terrain avoidance.

[CpnCrunch]

You'd want to be referring only to the chart quadrant altitudes for terrain avoidance.

Oh yes, definitely. I was just suggesting it as a backup, just in case the pilot screws up for any reason.

Anyway, if you're already on the lake then I imagine it's not going to give you any warnings because you're already IN the terrain. However if you were 600ft AGL I would imagine it would give you a warning if you were heading towards a 600ft hill.

[New_PIC]

Copying a link here from the accident thread.
http://airfactsjournal.com/2014/02/nigh ... g-element/
I don't know anything about the author's credentials but found it interesting that he echos my earlier lunacy.

[PilotDAR]

warnings because you're already IN the terrain

Yeah, when I'm water flying, I have to turn the terrain warnings off. The Aera allows me to define a landing spot for the purpose of "telling" the GPS that I'm landing, so don't terrain warn me. I have set a few water spots so. Interestingly the GTN750 in the 182 did not seem to have the ability to define a "runway" so for all water flights, I'd turn the terrain off entirely - which kinda defeats the purpose.

Terrain warning for night flying would be a nice to have, and I do consider it, but I prefer the barometric altitude alert I have in the 150, which I set to the quadrant altitude for the area. As long as I have the altimeter setting correct, it'll flash me if I descend below, which I have no need to do at night, unless on final, runway in sight.