The After-Hours Club

Nighttime might account for 50 percent of a 24-hour day, on average, but the FAA-mandated night flying instructional requirement makes up only 7.5 percent of the total curriculum for the private pilot certificate. That comes out to three hours of required night flying experience within a 40-hour minimum training schedule - which hardly seems sufficient when you consider the differences between day and night flying. However, the FAA recently added the requirement under FAR Part 61.109 to perform a dual night cross-country flight of at least 100 nautical miles for private pilot candidates. The requirement for three hours of dual night flying, including 10 takeoffs and 10 full-stop landings, remains unchanged.

Once you have earned your private pilot certificate you will have to maintain or regain night flying currency if you want to carry passengers outside of daylight hours. More important than being legally current to fly at night is being safe and competent to fly at night. There are no specific federal requirements that pilots review airport lighting or common traffic advisory frequencies (CTAF); know how to determine control tower hours of operation or pilot controlled lighting (PCL) technique; or understand airport lighting or sectional chart symbology that applies to night flying - unless you consider the "preflight action" directive of FAR 91.103 as sufficient to cover "all available information concerning that flight."

Night flying simultaneously presents pilots greater challenges and offers them greater freedoms than flying during daylight hours. There is a peaceful serenity that only a calm, moonlit night can provide. There are fewer aircraft to crowd the taxiway, runway, and your route of flight. The few aircraft that you encounter are much easier to see at night because their lights are often quite visible against the dark sky (although the same can't be said if you're looking down on traffic flying over a metropolitan area). Air traffic controllers are almost always less stressed during hours of darkness because they're handling fewer aircraft, and they tend to be more relaxed and friendly.

The same city buildings that would inconspicuously blend into each other and the landscape during daylight are bristling with lights and discernable from 30 miles away at night. The airport environment looks different, too - rotating beacons, runway lighting, visual approach slope indicators, precision approach path indicators, and approach light systems all reveal your landing destination from much farther away and much more easily at night than during day - assuming the visibility is high enough. Even the radio reception range for the automatic terminal information service (ATIS), control tower, automated surface observation system (ASOS), automated weather observation system (AWOS), and flight service stations is greater at night.

There is a flip side to all of this good news, however. Consult FAR 91.155 for the different VFR visibility and cloud clearance requirements in uncontrolled airspace at night - these values change at altitudes below 10,000 feet msl. Mountains, hills, cliffs, and other natural inclines can seem to disappear if there are no lighted towers, homes, or buildings on them or any urban or natural (moonlight, for example) lighting behind them. Fog, smog, haze, smoke, and clouds - all easy to see at 10 a.m. - are invisible at 10 p.m. Even when clouds and smoke are hovering right over urban lights they appear as empty black holes and are easily mistaken for water, or more likely not noticed at all. If you expect to see a town and it is under cloud cover, for all practical purposes, it will not exist. This can lead to disaster when navigating en route at night. The lack of a horizon can be a serious concern for pilots with little night experience, particularly if flying over water. The lights from stars and vessels can quickly blend into a seamless wall of white-speckled blackness, easily leading to spatial disorientation.

Airports themselves can actually cause confusion and situational second-guessing because they are often lost among surrounding city lights. Many airports with multiple or parallel runway layouts only light one of their runways at night. Observing a single runway where you believe crossing or parallel runways should be can cause you to believe that you are not flying above the airport you expected to be near. Sometimes the airport isn't there at all! Well, it really is, but it is hidden in the darkness because all of its runway and taxiway lights are off. These factors, along with the distraction of other lighting in the area, can convince you that you are not where you think you are. Suddenly the benefits of your careful flight planning and skillful navigation can diminish into confusion and doubt.

Even if your night navigation proves to be sound, once you arrive at your destination airport there may be no weather and airport information available; the control tower may be closed; and the runway and taxiway lights may not be on. Night-only noise abatement procedures and unusual night-only arrival (and departure) routes - both unknown to you and mandated - may be in effect. The lack of current local altimeter information, especially if you are flying through an area of varying temperature and/or different barometric pressures, can leave your aircraft much higher or lower than the altitude that your altimeter is displaying. Needless to say, this situation can lead to trouble If you have difficulty seeing the airport's windsock from above in the dark (its light is rarely effective from any distance) you may inadvertently land with a tailwind. Once you are on the ground, you might not be able to buy fuel or find a telephone. These very real concerns make night flying a serious and sometimes misunderstood aspect of aviation.

Some pilots avoid night flying as much as possibly because they believe it to be too complicated or even dangerous. Of course, as in any aviation operation, knowledge and training will provide the tools needed.

Federal Aviation Regulation 61.57 provides pilots with the recency of experience requirements to fly at night. Certificated pilots may make night flights without passengers (provided that their flight review is current), but to carry passengers they must have performed a minimum of three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop from an airport traffic pattern within the last 90 days in an aircraft of the same category (airplane, helicopter, airship, glider, etc.) and class (airplane single-engine land, airplane single-engine sea, airplane multiengine land, etc.) "during the period beginning one hour after sunset and ending one hour before sunrise." Student pilots require a special endorsement to fly solo at night. Your aircraft, as per FAR 91.209, must display working position lights (also called navigation or nav lights), which consist of a green light on the right wing tip, a red light on the left wing tip, and a white light at the rear of the aircraft. You should use anticollision lights if your aircraft has them, although many pilots turn them off on the ramp, as they can be annoying to other aircraft, vehicles, and people in the vicinity. Strobe lights also should be turned off in clouds when you are flying on an instrument flight plan at night because they create a confusing illusion - fun at a disco, but horribly distracting and potentially vertigo-producing when shooting an instrument ap- proach to minimums. Landing lights are not required if the flight is not carrying paying passengers, although they, along with taxi lights, are very effective for taxiing, taking off, and landing safely at night.

Once you have ensured that pilot and aircraft are in compliance with the FARs you should become familiar with night/light symbology and entries on VFR aeronautical charts, as well as all of the useful night flying information available in the Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM) and Airport/ Facility Directory (A/FD). The AIM thoroughly explains the big picture regarding airport lighting and symbology - see: "Aero lighting/Visual aids." The A/FD (or its commercial equivalent airport guide) will be a necessary tool for obtaining specific airport lighting, runway, radio frequency, control tower operating hours, pilot controlled lighting (PCL) frequencies and mic keying requirements, runway end identifier lights (REIL) availability, and other necessary information via its coded entries (there is a key in the front of the book).

The VFR sectional and terminal charts' airport data lines and airport depictions include coded information and symbols that pilots must understand for night flight planning. The solid blue star (after the CT - control tower - frequency) at towered airports indicates that the control tower is not in full-time operation (the hours of operation for each airport depicted on a particular chart can be obtained by unfolding the chart and looking up the frequencies tabulation).

The letter "C" enclosed in a solid blue circle after the CT frequency and solid star means the airport has a common traffic advisory frequency, or CTAF. This frequency is used when the tower is not in operation or where depicted at a nontowered airport (in magenta). The next line below begins with a bolder number denoting the highest point on the runway landing surface. Then comes the runway length (in hundreds of feet - add two zeros) of the longest available landing surface. If a capital letter "L" precedes the runway length information it tells pilots that the runways are lighted during times of darkness.

An "L" preceded by a small asterisk indicates that pilot-controlled lighting is in use at the field - the lights don't come on until the pilot activates them. The pilot keys the radio's microphone, and the approach (if available), runway, taxiway (if available), and ramp (if available) lighting comes on for a period of 15 minutes. Although not generically published as such, the PCL frequency is almost always the same as the CTAF (or unicom). You will still need to confirm the proper frequency in the A/FD, as well as the proper number of "clicks" of the microphone for various levels of approach and runway lighting.

Civil airports are identifiable at night (and during the day if the weather is below basic VFR) by their rotating beacon - one green flash, one white flash (military airports flash two white for each green). Taxiway edge lights are blue (taxiway "lead off" lines - from the runway center line to the taxiway center line - are green and yellow, while taxiway centerline lights are green). Runway edge lights are white (except on instrument runways where they change from white to amber the last 2,000 feet).

At larger airports you may encounter touchdown zone lighting on either side of the runway centerline ending 3,000 feet down the runway, and runway centerline lights, which are white until between 3,000 feet and 1,000 feet of remaining runway, where they alternate red and white until the final 1,000 feet, where they are all red. Runway threshold lights mark the beginning and end of the runway. They appear green flying toward the approach end of the runway and red toward the departure end of the runway. Displaced threshold lights are outboard from the beginning of available landing area. Runway end identifier lights (REIL) are a pair of bright synchronized flashing lights on each side of the runway threshold. They are there to make the runway more conspicuous among surrounding lighting.

When control towers shut down for the night these airports become nontowered fields, and pilots should employ all of the radio transmissions and safety precautions used at other nontowered airports.

With a well-prepared plan of action; knowledge of the FARs, AIM entries, sectional chart symbology, aviation lighting, and A/FD information pertaining to night flying; as well as a carefully detailed strategy for each specific night flight; you will soon learn that flying outside of daylight hours can provide some of the most enjoyable and memorable of your aviation adventures.

10 Night Flying Tips

1. Consult and comply with federal aviation regulations pertaining to night flying (FAR 61.57, 91.155, and 91.209).
2. Airport control tower hours of operation can be obtained from VFR charts, the Airport/Facility Directory, commercially produced airport guides such as AOPA's Airport Directory, ATIS (when the tower is closed), and via radio from Flight Service (122.2 MHz).
3. During preflight inspection ensure that all lighting - position lights, rotating beacon, interior and instrument lighting, landing/taxi lights, and extra lighting such as anticollision lights - is functioning properly.
4. Choose alternate airports along the planned route of flight and note all runway and traffic pattern information and frequencies. What would you do if you arrived at your destination airport and a plane ahead of you lands gear-up, causing the closure of the only runway? Have a back-up plan.
5. Always file (and open and close) a flight plan with Flight Service and use radar flight following (from a nearby towered airport, approach controller, or air route traffic control center) at night.
6. On your downwind leg, "click on" pilot-controlled lighting again to ensure airport lighting won't go out when you need it most.
7. Adhere to the "15 minute rule." Use a flashlight to check the heading indicator against the magnetic compass every 15 minutes. Also, make sure you are on course at least as often.
8. Make sure you are familiar with radio failure procedures and transponder code (7600), and light gun signals (FAR 91.125).
9. Practice above and beyond the minimum number of night takeoffs and landings (three landings to a full stop every 90 days) for safety and proficiency and not just to satisfy the regulations. (Some pilots occasionally practice night landings with the landing light off and flaps up to ensure proficiency with an electrical/light failure.)
10. Bring a flashlight (red light if available) and test that batteries are fully charged before you start your preflight inspection. Back-up flashlights should be within easy reach in the cockpit as you fly in the event your panel lighting fails.