TINA SRIVASTAVA: All right, so
flying at night is really fun. And in order to get
your private pilot, you actually have
to fly at night. You even have to do a short
cross-country flight at night. So it's really important for
you to understand the dimensions of flying at night. And it's something else to
set personal minimums about. But overall, I love
flying at night. It's one of my
favorite things to do. And this is actually a
picture that the person sitting on the right seat took
when I was landing in Bedford. So what do you see
in this picture? Who can identify
where the runway is? Can you at least see the runway? All right, this just-- yes? In the yellow shirt. AUDIENCE: It's right
after the yellow cross. And there's red
and yellow lights on either side of the runway. And the very end of it is marked
with a line of green lights. TINA SRIVASTAVA: That's right. So the green line is marking
the threshold of the runway. Along the sides of the runway,
it's yellow and then becomes red at the end. What are those lights to
the right of the runway? AUDIENCE: Glide slope. TINA SRIVASTAVA:
Your glide slope. What is it called? AUDIENCE: PAPI. TINA SRIVASTAVA: PAPI. All right. Come on, guys. We've covered VASIs and PAPIs. So the VASI was the vertical one
where the two lights are on top and then two lights
are at the bottom. And the PAPI is
the horizontal one. And so as you can see
in my beautiful picture, because it's my perfect
flying abilities, I have two red lights
and two white lights. Thank you very much. Yes? AUDIENCE: It doesn't
look like you're level. TINA SRIVASTAVA: It either
looks like I'm not level, or the person taking
the picture isn't level. But it's definitely not level. I agree with you. Now I would tell you how
I'm getting bounced around by the wind. But in fact, at night, usually,
there isn't that much wind. So let's talk about the
definition of night. We actually had a good
conversation at dinner last night with Mark Nathanson. And he was talking
about his FAA exam where he was examining
a friend of mine, Emily, on her oral exam and
asked her when's sunset? And she said, well,
which sunset do you mean? So there are a lot of
different definitions. And so if you're
just flying at night and you want to log hours
that you're flying at night, then it's really any time after
sunset or after civil twilight. But there are
specific requirements in terms of having
landings at night. And you can log
whether your landing is at night or during the day. And they're a little bit
more strict restrictions. So the landing has to be
a full hour after sunset. And if you're in the wee
hours of the morning, then a full hour before sunrise. And that's because it's still
pretty light during that time. So even after the
sun sets, it stays bright for about an hour or so. And so they want to
make sure that you're really familiar with flying
in true night conditions. Yeah. I love flying at night. One thing that's a lot easier
is sometimes seeing the traffic, so seeing other aircraft. If you get notified, hey,
there's a traffic 3 o'clock. You look out, and there it is. You can see the light. There also aren't that
many other planes. So sometimes you get
the airport to yourself or the tower
controller to yourself. And depending on the
weather and the climate, it can be really great. What's really interesting
is that in the US, there is no special rating. So we talked about this. You don't need your instrument
rating to fly at night. Now that's not the case
in other countries. And I wouldn't say that we're,
as I think Philip noted, we don't think that
the Mexicans know-- we think that maybe they know
something we don't, which is that you really need to
take a lot of precautions. Flying at night
is, in some ways, similar to flying in
instrument conditions. And we talked about some of
the visual effects and cues that you can get disoriented in. So during your
private, you're going to have three hours of night
training, which is really cool. So you're going to fly at night. You're going to also do a
short cross-country flight. But in terms of
currency requirements, some people were asking
about currency requirements, this is one of the
currency requirements that you really want
to keep in mind. So this after you get your pilot
private pilot license, in order for you to fly with
passengers, you have to have three takeoffs
and landings to a full stop within the preceding 90 days. So this is important. If you go on a trip
during the day. And if it's going
to be night, you might have to land somewhere,
kick out your passengers, do your currency,
and then continue. I've had to do
that at least once. So night vision,
so we talked a lot when we're talking
about human factors about your visual system. So one thing I
think people might have heard of the different
rods and cones in your eyes. So I'm getting a
lot of head nods. So the rods are
actually the thing that can really help you see. But it's a lot easier
to look on the sides. So looking straight
during the daytime, that's where you can see. But your rods that do a
better job at nighttime are your primary receptors
for night vision. And so, unfortunately, the
problem is if you stare right at something, it might
actually be harder to see it than if you were
scanning, and you were five to 10 degrees off
of what you were looking at. And so one thing
when you're flying at night, when you're looking
for traffic, instead of just looking in one spot, try
to scan to look around. Another thing is that it takes
you a long time for your eyes to adjust to the darkness. So you can just probably
have noticed this yourself when you're in your
room at night or working on something, your
eyes take a little time to adjust to that night light. And so what you want to do,
if you're flying at night, is to give yourself a
chance to adjust to that. You don't want to be in
a very bright place right before you go flying at night
because your eyes won't adjust. Another thing you can consider
doing is using red lights. And I actually do that. So this is a super
fashionable picture of me wearing a giant headlamp. And I actually have a
red light headlight. And there are pros and cons. I think it's great
because it really helps. You can have illumination
without it destroying your night vision adjustment. But it also washes
out red color. So you just want to
keep that in mind. But also, just in general,
having that lamp on your head is really helpful. Although, you look not so great. It's a good thing that even
if you take off in the evening when it's still bright
outside, if you already have that light in place,
then once it gets dark, once you need it, you
have it right there. Again, you're not bending
over, moving your head a lot, and searching the ground or your
bag to look for a flashlight after it's dark when you're
trying to fly a plane. That's not a good thing. If it's going to get
dark or could possibly get dark while
you're still flying have those
flashlights available. Make sure you know where the
light buttons are for all of your instrument panels. PHILIP GREENSPUN: Yeah. It's important to mention
that if the airplane, if everything is
working properly, it should have a dome light
or a map reading light or something that's
in the airplane. So you don't absolutely
need the flashlight unless something is broken. TINA SRIVASTAVA:
Well, it depends. You might need a
flashlight, for example, just to conduct your pre-flight
inspection, so to walk around the airplane, make sure
all of the control surfaces can move free and clear. You want to use a
light to do that. I won't get into the details,
but there was an accident in Hanscom a couple years back. And one of the concerns was
that they had a lock on one of the control surfaces. And it was nighttime when
they were trying to take off. And so having a
flashlight, I think, is really critical in order to
do your pre-flight inspection and make sure your
airplane is safe to fly. Yes? AUDIENCE: I've had this question
for about the last year. Can you do anything special
with your iPad at night because that's enough to
ruin your night vision. TINA SRIVASTAVA: Yeah. So that is a very good question. Do you do anything
special with your iPad because it's enough to
ruin your night vision? Yeah. So I actually think it
is definitely something I keep in mind always. You can adjust the brightness
setting on the iPad. It still can be very bright. And then sometimes
it has a night mode, and that does work
for some things. It doesn't work
for other things. I think the approach plates
are still pretty bright. But you can make your whole
map and the weather information in night mode. And I think actually
Garmin default mode is a much better
viewable on your iPad than for flight as well. Yes? AUDIENCE: You could also
try inverting colors. It makes something
that's white to black. I TINA SRIVASTAVA: Yeah. AUDIENCE: Some of the
colors that go on a map are the colors that
won't show correctly. But it's something you can try. TINA SRIVASTAVA: Yeah,
so the suggestion was when you're using a
tablet to invert the colors, and that can help make
everything white that's black. Would also be where the
other colors might change. So if you're looking for
cues like we talked earlier about the VFR versus
IFR lights, make sure the green didn't turn red and
the red didn't turn green. OK, so night illusions, so this
is something to keep in mind. Especially in the
Northeast, there's so many airports but
also cities everywhere. And a lot of times,
you can accidentally think that certain lights
are something else. We talked about the black
hole illusion earlier when we were talking
about human factors. That if, for example,
there's a lot of snow around and it's dark, it
makes it even harder to see features on the ground. And if it makes it, you might
actually be lower than you are, than you think you are
just because if there aren't any visual
cues where you see exactly where the ground is. Another concern is if the
runway lights are too bright, it can make it seem like
the runway is closer to you. So that's why a VASI or a
PAPI, some sort of glide slope reference is a really good
idea at night to make sure your eyes aren't
playing tricks on you, and you're actually
where you think you are. So there's a whole bunch
of equipment ratings that you need. This is you need
everything that you need during the day for VFR flight. But you also need some
additional lights. And certainly, if you want
to think about another issue is the electrical system. So that's a more
difficult thing. That if you lose your
electrical system when you're flying
at night, you don't have the ability to
look outside to see where you are quite as easily. PHILIP GREENSPUN: Yeah. And if your airplane
has circuit breakers and doesn't have
fuses, then you don't need the spare set of fuses,
just so you aren't concerned. TINA SRIVASTAVA: And
then this is a reminder of all that equipment
that you need anyway during the day for flying. So speaking more specifically
about the lights that are required on an
aircraft, so you actually have to have lights
related to navigation. And so there are different
type of navigation lights. In general, you have a red
light on the left to try to say, red is like port. Port is red. The port wine is red. And so red is on the left. That's one way they suggest
that you remember that. There's also this big
anti-collision strobe light that blinks. Sometimes you
actually have to have that light all the time
like even during the day to avoid collisions. But it's especially
important at night. But what's also
especially important is when you turn it off. You don't want to keep
that anti-collision strobe light on when you're
taxiing on the ground. Again, when you're
flying, sometimes it's hard to tell if
something's on the ground or if it's in the air. And if you see a
bunch of lights, you might think it's
a plane that's flying, and it can get confusing. So once you're off
of an active runway, also turn off your
anti-collision strobe light. This is where it talks about
that red light on the left is port. But the basic idea is
based on where these are. That if you see a red light,
that it's probably an airplane. And so if the red light
is on the left wing, and you see an
airplane, it's usually if I'm flying an
airplane and this is another airplane crossing
me, if it's flying in this way, I see the red light. If it's flying the other way,
then I see the green light. So the colors help
you figure out which way the plane is going. PHILIP GREENSPUN: Yeah,
I realize this slide is a little confusing. That flashing red is not one
of the navigation lights. That would be like an
anti-collision beacon or something rotating. TINA SRIVASTAVA: Yeah. And we'll talk
about beacons next. So one thing that's really
fun is when you're flying is to look for airports. So even if you're on
a commercial flight, I really recommend just staring
out the window while you're flying over a city
and try to see if you can see one of these beacons. And odds are, you probably will. Even if you're in a tall
building and look out, the Northeast has
so many airports, you might be able to find
one of these beacons. So it'll basically be flashing
green, white, green, white. Or if it's a military
airport, slightly different. And so this little video, if you
pay attention on the top right corner, it's showing
that green, white, green. And the way that I just
said it where you see it, and you say what's
happening, that's a good way to check with your
co-pilot or just the person sitting next to you if they're
seeing the same thing you are. So there's so many
lights in a city. And they're different colors. And they're same color as
street lights and other lights. And so to really
make sure you've identified an airport and
the other person sitting next you identified
the same airport and you both agree you're
heading to the same place, it's good to make sure that you
guys are following the beacon. And you're making sure you've
identified the same airport that you're heading to. So this is that just seems like
people had a lot of familiarity when we even just started with
the first picture of me landing at Bedford. So you can see all the
different lights on a runway. The types of lights that
you see on the runway depend on the runway itself. So a smaller airport
might only just have lights on the
boundary of the runway. Whereas a really
big, long runway, Boston Logan has a whole
bunch of lights going on. The blue lights are
actually the taxiway lights. And again, so if you're
on a commercial flight, really highly recommend getting
a window seat even if you have to pay $20 bucks for it. And while you're taxiing,
look out the window, and you'll see all these blue
lights while you're taxiing. And you can look at the
runway markers as well. Yes? AUDIENCE: At the
beginning of the runway, there's another [INAUDIBLE]
parallel and then [INAUDIBLE] TINA SRIVASTAVA: Yeah. So you sometimes call
those approach light bars. And those are at
big, big airports. And even some runways even have
what's called a, is it a rabbit or a ribbon, where
they have lights that-- AUDIENCE: It's a lead
in, the lead in light. TINA SRIVASTAVA:
A lead in light. So it's not even
that they're all just on but a light that turns. So there's a row of lights,
and they turn them on in a row. So it looks like a line that's
pointing towards the runway. So even here at Hanscom,
one of the runways has that. The one with the ILS
approach has that. I think they call it a
ribbon or a rabbit light. AUDIENCE: It can also be
called a rabbit, yeah. TINA SRIVASTAVA: A rabbit. Yeah. So this is a story I just
wanted to share with you. Recently, I did a flight
to Lawrence Airport. So Lawrence is very close by. It's just north of here. And I was going to
land at this airport. And I know that from all
the markings in the book that this runway that I
was landing at had a PAPI. But as I was coming
in to land, so this is-- so if you look
in this, so the runway is up in the left corner
of this picture over here. And so that's what the
runway looked like. This is the picture. As you can see on the left and
the right, there is no PAPI. So there's no PAPI there. And so as I was
coming in to land, I wanted to make sure I
was in the right place, everything was working properly. So I asked the tower controller. It was a towered airport. Is the PAPI on? Is it active? Is it broken? Is there something I
missed in the no tam that the PAPI was out. And he said that
the PAPI was on. And so this confused me because,
obviously, the PAPI is not on. And so I didn't know exactly. Something was wrong. Either it was out, or maybe
I was at the wrong runway. I didn't want to
take any chances. So I executed a go around. And I told the tower controller,
I don't see the PAPI. He was like, no, the
PAPI is definitely on. So OK. I did my go around. I proceeded in the
traffic pattern. I came back. And miraculously, the
second time around, I could see the PAPI very clearly. Tower controller
stuck to his story that it was on the whole time. But I have photo evidence
that that wasn't true. So here on the left,
you can see the PAPI. I think the reason that
story is relevant also, though, is that you want to
make sure that you are seeing what you expect to see, right? We talked about the
importance of a PAPI certainly to help with issues
in terms of what your height is and visual illusions
that are going on. But also, if you expect
something to be there and it's not, maybe there's
a lighted wind sock. And the lighted wind
sock's not there. You might want to check. Did I miss a notification
of it being out? Or am I in the right place? You don't want to
proceed, especially at night, into an area that
you might not be familiar with. It also obviously
helps to have a tower controller to talk to you. If you're at an
uncontrolled airport, there is something called
pilot-controlled lighting that we'll get into. So this is just talking more
about lights at big runways. OK, pilot-controlled lighting. So you'll see in
this little video, so it starts off there's
no light at the runway. And then, all of a
sudden, the light pops up. So we're looking
right over here. And that one has that
ribbon light or rabbit light that I was talking about. So you see the white
light that's moving. And then it lights
up the whole thing. So pilot-controlled
lighting is kind of cool. So at non-towered airports
or even at airports that are usually towered
but at night they might not have the tower controller
working overnight, they can turn off the lights. And the way that you turn
it on is you actually do pilot-controlled lighting. So there's a frequency. Sometimes it's
the same frequency as the tower frequency. And you basically
on the same button that you hold down when you're
speaking, you just click it. So you keep pushing that button. So if you push it five times,
it turns on the lights. The number of
times you click it, impacts what the brightness is
of the intensity of the light. One thing to also keep in mind
is that the light is usually only on for about 15 minutes. So if you're still very
far away from the airport, it's not a good idea
to turn the light on because you don't want a
situation where it takes you 15 minutes to get there. And then as soon as you're
landing, the light turn off. So it's good to just wait
until you're actually close to the
airport and do that. Now one thing that maybe isn't
recommended but is really fun to do, one time,
I was flying at night. And I was flying over a
bunch of untowered airports. There are a whole bunch
in the Northeast area. And just to get used to
pilot-controlled lighting, we would look up untowered
airports we were flying over. And we would just light
up various airports. That was really fun. But it's generally a bad idea. Again, because if
somebody is coming in to land and the
lights are already on, they might off when
they're not supposed to. So you really want
the pilot who's landing to control
when it turns on, so they get their 15 minutes. So I just wanted
to have a-- yes? Go ahead. AUDIENCE: Are the PAPI and
VASI light always on the left or sometimes on the right? TINA SRIVASTAVA: No. The question is, are
the PAPI and VASI lights always on either the left
or on the right of the runway? And no. I think I've seen
both situations. PHILIP GREENSPUN: Yeah. I think left is
kind of standard. But for whatever reason, you
also may see them on the right. TINA SRIVASTAVA: Yeah. I think they were on the left
here in this Lawrence picture. AUDIENCE: At what
point in the approach do you typically want
to see the lights? TINA SRIVASTAVA: So at
what point in the approach do you want to see the lights? Well, usually, before
you're making your approach, you see the lights. So when you're
identifying the airport is when you see the lights. So we didn't talk
about it much today but how you usually
do a landing, we discussed a little bit
on instrument approaches. But when you're just flying
VFR, including VFR at night, the way that you do
an approach to landing actually involves flying. Let me draw it over here. PHILIP GREENSPUN: And
while you're doing that, I'll point out that the
runway lights are directional. So they'll be
substantial-- if you're lined up with the runway,
they'll be a lot brighter. Still not as bright
as the surrounding clutter and the shopping
malls and so forth. But they'll be
much, much brighter when you're lined
up with the runway than if you're looking
from straight down or from the downwind leg as
Tine is about to draw for you. TINA SRIVASTAVA: So if
this is your runway, and so it would have all
of its runway markings. So let's say this is runway 29. You don't just-- you could do
a straight in where you just kind of come to it. But most of the time,
you would practice doing an approach
where you actually enter the traffic
pattern 45 degrees, so at a 45 degree angle here. And then you enter this
is kind of the midpoint. So you enter in
at the 45 degrees, and then you continue this way. And so that's considered
being on the downwind leg. So why would it be considered
being on the downwind leg? Anyone? AUDIENCE: The wind's blowing
that way because you're landing this way. TINA SRIVASTAVA: Exactly. Exactly. Very good. So the wind is going
to be blowing this way. Because when you land, you
want to land into the wind. And so if you're flying
in the opposite direction of the runway, the wind's
going to be behind you. So you're on the downwind leg. This point over here is
called being abeam the runway or abeam the numbers. And then, you fly
out about to here. Usually, you'll start getting
used to what this angle is. It might also be 45 degrees. But sometimes it depends on
if there are noise abatement areas, and you're supposed
to make a close approach or a different approach. But essentially, you
come out over here. You can see the
runway out your wing. And then you turn your base
leg, so that's this way. So then you're on base. Pretty much, depending
on the airplane, when you're abeam
the numbers, you might start getting into runway
in your landing configuration. You might start putting
10 degrees of flaps, slowing down your airspeed. You might want to be 80
or 90 knots of airspeed. Then you turn base. You might want to put in
another 10 degrees of flaps. You're at 20 degrees of flaps. And then, as you come
in, you might want to be between 80 and 90 knots. And now when you turn
final, that's final. And as you get much
closer, it's short final. And here, you want
to be trying to be very aligned with the
numbers and the runway. At the beginning, you want to
be looking at the VASI and PAPI. But once you get closer, again,
you want to look at the runway itself. So the question was
when do you want to see the lights of the runway? Before you enter the traffic
pattern, you want to see that. Because otherwise,
you don't know exactly where the midpoint is. You don't know how to enter. You don't know how to
make sure you're exactly flying alongside the runway. PHILIP GREENSPUN: Yeah. And just keep in mind, this
is called right traffic because you're
making right turns. At a towered airport
like Hanscom, depending on what direction
you're coming from, you'll be assigned either right
or left traffic to keep you from crossing the runway. At an untowered airport,
it's conventional, usually, to fly left traffic
pattern unless there's terrain or some other
consideration that'll be published. And they'll tell you that
right pattern is preferred. But if they don't
tell you anything, then left traffic
is the convention. TINA SRIVASTAVA:
Yeah, absolutely. And just for completeness,
once you take off, you're in the upwind. And then you could turn
crosswind and then downwind again. And there might be
other people that are flying the other side
of the traffic pattern at the same time. So that's usually
the case at Hanscom. There are people doing both. Is there a question? Yes? AUDIENCE: Are there
any situations where you have to call an
airport to turn on the lights like you were saying? TINA SRIVASTAVA: Oh, yeah. So the question was, do
you have to call an airport to tell them to
turn on the lights? So Hyannis, in the story
I was giving before, had the lights on. But as we talked
about procession, your heading indicator,
in this particular plane, was really, really not good. And regardless, you have to keep
updating your heading indicator with your magnetic
compass during flight. So your heading
indicator is going to drift and get a
couple degrees off. And so throughout
the flight, you have to continuously look
at your magnetic compass and adjust your
heading indicator. And so usually, you only have
to do that every so often, maybe every 30 minutes, every hour. But this particular
plane that it was in it was just a terrible instrument. And it would get 20 degrees
off within five minutes. And I was basically just
moving it all the time. The thing was basically busted. And the problem with it
was I was flying at night. And at nighttime, although
you can illuminate your flight instruments, you
can't illuminate that magnetic compass. And so that little ball
with the liquid in it, I couldn't illuminate it without
having my headlight on and then losing my night vision. So it very difficult
for me to figure out exactly what heading I was
on at that particular moment. And so that's why
I wanted to call up Hyannis, which had two
intersecting runways, to just double check
and double confirm I was going into the runway
that I thought I was going into. And the really nice tower
controller at Hyannis lit up to a higher light
intensity the runway that I was going to land on, so
I could make sure, yes, that's where I was going. And then he reduced the
light intensity back down. PHILIP GREENSPUN: That was a
great commercial for a glass cockpit or an HSI, which is
slave to a magnetometer out in the wing. All right, we should
wrap this one up. TINA SRIVASTAVA:
So the last thing is just I wanted to do it a
little bit of a discussion on where you might try to land
if you had an engine failure, and you weren't able to
get your engine restarted. Most of the time you
have an engine failure, there's a whole flow
that you go through. And turns out, you probably
messed something up. You didn't have enough
mixture of whatever it was, and you can get the
engine restarted. But if you can't get
the engine restarted, and you have to do a forced
landing, where would we go? So in this picture,
the red x is where I'm saying you had that failure. You don't think you could make
it all the way to Mansfield or another airport. So I threw up a couple letters. But where? Let's talk about
the thought process. How would you decide
where you would land? Land in the Hudson. OK, one suggestion. AUDIENCE: Not A or C because
they're populated areas. TINA SRIVASTAVA: Great. Not A or C because they
are populated areas. Very good. You would get that
right on the FAA exam. All right, what about B or D? Which one? Bravo or delta? AUDIENCE: Bravo. TINA SRIVASTAVA: Yeah, bravo. Why would you choose bravo? AUDIENCE: It's a road. TINA SRIVASTAVA: It's a road. Why is a road a good
place to land at night? AUDIENCE: As compared to water. TINA SRIVASTAVA: As
compared to water. D is not on-- delta
is not on water. That blue line is a
mode b transponder line. AUDIENCE: Illumination. TINA SRIVASTAVA:
Illumination, that's it. A road is likely
to be illuminated. So you can actually
see it at night. And it'll be this nice long
runway that you can land on. Yes? AUDIENCE: I was going
to say it's paved. TINA SRIVASTAVA: It's paved. AUDIENCE: It's a little
bit more forgiving. TINA SRIVASTAVA:
Yeah, absolutely. It's much better to pick a
paved surface than landing in a dark field which might
turn out to be a lake, and you didn't realize. Also, D, if you notice,
is towards the mountains. So landing in the mountains
is not a good plan. Trying to see mountains at
night is not a good plan. So it's probably not a good idea
to go north in this picture. All right. AUDIENCE: What's
the blue line again? PHILIP GREENSPUN:
That was the airspace. It's part of the Boston bravo. TINA SRIVASTAVA: Yeah. That's the blue line surrounding
the Boston class bravo airspace. PHILIP GREENSPUN: Yeah, and
then that magenta one down there at the bottom is the 30 nautical
mile mode c veil, it's called. And then these here,
that's one tower. And these M things, that's
multiple radio towers. AUDIENCE: Now how would
the risk of hitting a car impact your decision
to land on a road? TINA SRIVASTAVA: Yeah. So what's really
interesting is actually the speed at which you land. So this is true for day
or night operations. When a Cessna is
landing, it usually lands at about 40 to 50 knots. And turns out,
that's actually very similar to the miles per
hour at which a car would be traveling on a highway. So what's really cool is if you
did have to land on a highway, you'd probably be going about
the same speed as the cars. PHILIP GREENSPUN:
Even on busy highways, people seem to have
just walked away. You never hear about somebody
landing on the highway and then was killed by a car. All right, let's-- TINA SRIVASTAVA: And
the last point on that is that, in Alaska,
you're actually required to do a
landing on a highway because they have
so few airports. PHILIP GREENSPUN:
In a couple places. All right, we've got one
more presentation and then the ForeFlight guys. So we'll wrap this
with my final advice based on I've done a fair
amount of night flying. It's good to take off
before civil twilight. That gives you time to adjust
to the world of darkness. So I like to take off on when
it's still a little bit light. I don't mind
landing in the dark, especially at a
familiar airport. I treat all the non-local night
flights as instrument flights. The FAA says you
can fly at night. That doesn't mean
that you should do every flight at night,
especially without a co-pilot. So either bring a co-pilot
or use an IFR approach. That helps you to find
the correct runway at the correct airport. Remember your two-pilot airline
crews have, quite a few times, landed at the wrong
airport altogether. Bigger airports are
better at night. You know? Landing at Hanscom
at night is a lot like landing during the day. There's just a million lights. And that's a nice big space. And the serious
parachutes good at night.
