Knowing Your Way at Night Is Part of Pilot Training

My first exposure to this was at a school in Seattle. I was a freshly minted instructor assigned to an evening ground school, and when I walked to the CFI office, I found a coworker having a meltdown because one of his students had gotten caught out as night fell.

The student was having trouble finding the airport, so he called the instructor on his cell phone from inside the airplane in flight to ask what was the name of the park he was supposed to report over when coming in from the east—and where exactly was it? And how did he turn on the lights in the cockpit and the landing light?

The CFI was (understandably) upset. You want your learners to know these things before they need to know these things. And the CFI was worried he would have to answer to the FAA if the learner accidentally landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (KSEA) to the south. Fortunately, that didn't happen. The student eventually made it back, and with the exception of some office furniture that bore the brunt of the meltdown, there were no casualties from the event. And as far I know, no one got in trouble with the FAA.

If the learner, CFI, and flight school are in agreement, the learner can be trained and endorsed for solo flight at night. This means learning about the physiology of night flight, such as how your eyes adjust to low light, in-flight illusions you can experience, and how to activate the lights at the airport (if applicable). The airplane flies the same at night as it does in the day, but the lack of illumination makes it more challenging. It can really mess with your depth perception, and it is easier to lose situational awareness and get lost, which is why there are schools adverse to allowing student pilots solo flight privileges at night.

Some FBOs and schools require all their renter pilots, no matter what their certificate level, to undergo a "night flying checkout." This is often a short flight to a nearby airport or a few laps in the pattern for the renter to regain their night currency. There are some renters who will ask for dual instruction at night to regain night currency.

If the FBO/flight school has a "90 rule," which states renters must fly with a school CFI every 90 days to retain rental privileges, the savvy instructors will use the night flight to kill two snakes with one rock—the 90-day and night in one neat package.

It is easy to forget things when you don’t use them. I once received a text from a coworker who was used to flying at a towered airport and didn’t know how to activate the lights at the nontowered field. A few clicks of the mic button does it. That’s what the asterisk next to the “L” on the VFR sectional means—lighting limitation, which in this case was “pilot controlled lighting.”

CFIs can be challenged to maintain their night currency. I have been that CFI who did three takeoffs and landings to full stop while my learner waited for me on the ramp before we did their night training.

I have also been that instructor pacing at the self-service fuel pump in the dark at the nontowered airport, hand-held radio on, listening for my learner to return. The last time this happened it was January, and I submit I was pacing more to stay warm than out of nervousness. The moon was out, the skies were clear, and two other flight school aircraft had departed for the required night training.

This school had a "night checkout" rule, along with a requirement that all student pilots had to be back on the ground at least 30 minutes before "night" as defined by the school.

Per cFR 1.1, night is defined as the "period between the end of evening civil twilight and the start of morning civil sunrise.” The time between sunrise/sunset and twilight is approximately 30 minutes. The concept of night can be confusing, as CFR §61.57 (b) (1) states "no person may act as pilot in command [PIC] of an aircraft carrying passengers during the period beginning one hour after sunset and ending one hour before sunrise, unless within the preceding 90 days that person has made at least three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop during the period beginning one hour after sunset and ending one hour before sunrise"

The school had its own definition of "night"—it was sunset as published in the Airman’s Almanac plus 30 minutes. As long as the learner made it back before the 30 minutes ran out, they weren’t breaking the school rules.

I kept reminding myself of this as I paced, checking my watch, feeling a bit like I was waiting for my daughter to get home from the prom and her date was a boy nicknamed Snake.

The learner was on his long solo cross-country flight. He texted me before departing on the final leg, giving me the ETA. In theory, he would arrive back at the home airport before twilight and before "night," per the definition used by the flight school.

The sky began to darken. I kept scanning the pattern and listening. I wasn't worried about him flying in the dusk as he was armed with multiple night-vision friendly flashlights, and he had already logged 2.0 dual instruction given at night, including a cross-country that took us through the Seattle Class B airspace And with the exception of a few radio calls, I had mostly been self-loading ballast on the flight. He had the skills.

Finally, I heard his call. He was on the 45-degree leg to downwind. This was followed by the multiple clicks on the CTAF that brought the lights up. He touched down, exited the runway with proper radio calls, cleaned up the aircraft, then taxied to the pumps. He shut down. opened the door of the cockpit, then asked, "How much trouble am I in, coach?"

The answer was none at all, because there was still 23 minutes until "night" fell. He said he would have made it back sooner, but he had to do an unexpected go-around at the towered airport and that put him behind schedule. He said it was a good lesson that flights don't always go as planned. Especially when night is involved.