Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Pilot in Command: Should I Be Flying at Night? Getting to know your natural body rhythms along with your limitations

That's me at Oroville Municipal Airport
on Cherokee 1029H which was just delivered to me
Photo Courtesy of Bob Owens

You are a low time VFR private pilot and you wonder--should I be flying at night? My initial answer to you is NO-- assuming you are lacking in the nocturnal experience of flying as pilot in command. There are, however some extenuating circumstances.

In my opinion, this is not an easy question because your own decision will be based on many factors including experience flying at night with an instructor (and then solo), whether you own a plane, your proximity to the airport, weather conditions including visibility and winds aloft, your mental and physical condition--including the health of your eyes.

Ultimately you have the 'ticket' and will have to choose. And I can attest that night time flying is an awesome event, incomparable in many ways to VFR daytime flight. More on this later in Part II.

Here are some pointers to think about based on my experiences. Part One consists of preparation, while part two will consider actual flying situations.

I am a low time VFR private pilot with about 400 flying hours, but I had the privilege of piloting my own plane for nearly two years under many conditions. And have had many many hours of both VFR and IFR instruction in my plane with its ADF, DME, dual navs and dual radios--fully equipped for IFR flight.

First off, my plane was on tie down at Oroville (California) Airport a mere 20 minutes from my home atop the mesas of Butte County. Secondly, I am an early morning person and have been for nearly most of my life. So, the middle of the night was and still is a perfect natural time for me to fly.

Get to know your own body rhythms because if you don't, you can land into some deep trouble. I recall a situation where I nearly had to declare an emergency because I chose to ignore them.

It was late Spring and I elected to begin flying cross country from Eugene, Oregon's Mahlon Sweet airport to Chico Municipal Airport at about 4 PM. I figured, I would arrive at Chico in about three and a half hours when it was still light. I did have some reservations about taking off late in the PM as opposed to leaving the following morning at 7AM when I would be my freshest.

Well, in retrospect, I realize I chose to ignore my body's natural rhythm. Here's what happened.

I am flying smooth VFR flight following Route 5 south out of Eugene and doing a normal scan. I had been flying about an hour and a half and had just left Medford and the Rogue Valley International Medford Airport behind me and was approaching Ashland, Oregon -another one of my visual checkpoints. Yes, I could make out the town and its airport to the east of Route 5 from my altitude of 8, 500 feet!

But then, shortly before I was over Ashland , I started experiencing severe fatigue and lightheadedness . My eyes started to droop and I realized I was beginning to doze off.

At this point, my survival instincts kicked in. I must have instantly activated large amounts adrenaline.

I initiated a smooth descent from 8,500 feet, grabbed my Oregon Airport charts showing one active runway 30/12, 3600 X 75 and elevation 1885; I visually checked for traffic, overflew the airport to determine the landing pattern via the windsocket direction, communicated my intent to land on 122.8, joined the pattern at a 45 , touched down safely, tied 29'er Hotel down for the night, called flight service to cancel my flight plan, found a hotel nearby and was sound asleep in a comfortable bed within 30 minutes.... a decision that, in retrospect, clearly saved my life as I started to doze off....at the controls--lulled to a drowsiness even as was constantly scanning and looking for safe landing platforms in case of an emergency.

You 'gotta' know your natural rhythms...If you are a morning person, as I clearly am, that is the optimal time to fly. If you are a night person, the darkness should not intimidate you. Fortunately, I am both a night person and morning/afternoon person (until about 2-3 PM), but not a late afternoon one.(There are even exceptions to this rule as Part II, will clearly and dramatically demonstrate. So stay tuned!)

That means, I have been waking up refreshed, alert and raring to attack the day's schedule when most people are dreaming and snoring away. (For instance, this blog was commenced at 4 AM, this day in early April. And tonight, the second night of composing this blog, it happens to be thunderstorming.

So, it was natural for me to wake up early at 3 AM, grab a light breakfast and head down the mountain to Oroville airport and pre-flight my plane by flashlight. I always made sure there was plenty of avgas in the dual tanks (24 gallons on each side). (Even though I had always topped off the tanks to the tabs after each flight, I still visually checked by flashlight to be sure. More on how important this procedure when you read Part II)

The best part of pre-flighting your 'bird' at 4AM is that there are no distractions at this hour unless you consider the crickets a major one...

As I review my logbook, I see my night flying totals 25.6 hours or about 5% of my total flight time.. Most were accumulated during summer when the air is calm and the nights clear. I flew 7.8 hours with my first instructor Dennis and the rest were aggregated flying solo as pilot in command in my own plane.

Part II will be coming soon: (featuring my counter-intuitive experience of flying late at night.) Part II is now up, click here to view.

For tips on mastering night flying, click here.

For a brief thanks to my many pilot instructors over the past 30 years and my introduction to aerobatics, click here.



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