December 21, 2020 is the darkest day of 2020 so we thought we would cover Night Time. After we originally do our night flying to earn our Private Pilot’s license we may not fly very often at night. Most pilots probably do their best to stay current, but many slip out of currency.
Night time can be confusing for pilots, but hopefully we help each pilot with some regulations and a few tips. This week Bobby and Wally break down what constitutes night time, when you can log night time in your logbook and when you can log your night landings. They also give a number of tips to be safe while flying at night.
Clear prop! Number two following twin traffic on 3 mile final. JB using runway 25 on a 4-mile final. This is Behind the Prop with United Flight Systems owner and licensed pilot, Bobby Doss. and it's co-host: major airline captain Designated Pilot Examiner, Wally Mulhearn. Now let's go behind the prop!
What's up, Wally? Hey Bobby, how are you? I’m good here. We go again another week, another podcast and today happens to be December the twenty first. What's special about today Wally? Today is the winter solstice, it is the shortest day of the year. If you will as far as daylight is concerned and so this would also be the darkest day of the year. That's correct, and we are going to talk about what is night time, a question that I get asked a lot around aviation, what are the definitions, and when can I log it, and when can I land in it, and count it as a night landing that kind of comes up around the fly school lot and we'll share some stories and tips and tricks about some nighttime flying as we go through this as well. Wally you're DPE you probably look at logbooks a lot and make sure people got there three hours of night and their other accomplishments at night. I would say as a as a recreational pilot for a number of years before about the flight school. I would make sure I did my night flying in my night landings every ninety days. But I really had to look it up almost every time because it's not something that I spend every day thinking about and I. It's confusing to a person who doesn't do this every day for a living it is. It is You know obviously. The requirements to be current tonight is three takeoffs and landings within the preceding ninety days. That's the daytime requirement, and all or the just normal currency requirement but then to be current for night you to have three takeoffs and landings to a full stop, within the preceding ninety days. Now the question is well, what counts as nighttime. Yeah, I think it is. The definition of what night is, is what's hard for me as a recreational pilot. Probably many others to know when they can and can't log their landings and when they can and can't log nighttime. I think I think what happens and try to teach this out of all my instructors. The instructor guides all this for private pilots. Right, they call you. They say hey you’ve soloed, we've done cross country, you're getting check ride ready. We have to do this and they talk about three hours of night time, and talk about ten landings at an airport with the control tower and blah blah blah. Whatever the regs say the CFI guides that and so then you go do it and they log it on the log book for you and then they sign off on it and you're done and you know now I got to do that again in the next proceeding ninety days. But you don't know what that really meant because you were guided and that's why private pilots struggle with some of these regs because the kind of thrown out into the ocean on their own. And now you've got to figure it out. So, I would constantly try and figure this out so I’ll refer people back to this podcast forever. There really are three periods. That I think the faa and the FAR/AIM talk about these three periods. There is a sunset to sunrise, which is when the sun, I guess I’m not an almanac guy but when the sun crest goes down across the horizon and normally, I look at weather bug because it's the front app on my iPhone home screen and if you scroll down to now it says the sun's going to rise and set it's got a little depiction and I know what that is. Right. So, I know that, that timeframe of day I need my position lights on and I need my anti-collision on if my aircraft has that. Pretty simple rules there, Far ninety-one two zero nine, if you want to go look it up. The second period is the end of civil twilight to the beginning of morning civil twilight. So that's a period, that is not as easy to calculate and have to look that up in an almanac. There's a great website I use probably just go search Google for “tell me where civil twilight starts today where I’m at” and this website will come up and it really shows the daylight and the brackets of night civil twilight and daytime. And the what's nice about that website is i know how long it is. So civil twilight is somewhere between twenty and thirty-five minutes after sunset depending on where you're at in the world, let's assume none of this applies to Alaska where it might be daytime all day or nighttime all day. But the civil twilights are, are the book ends between daylight, sunset, and then really what is considered nighttime. And then really what you. What I’ve learned after looking at up. Many times, is the third period is really that period one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise.
And that's where the faa says you can log your night landings for currency to have passengers with you at night and that's far sixty-one point five seven b. bravo, which talks about that so really three periods. The kind of before the sun goes down and the sun comes up that sunset to sunrise. Then we got civil twilight on both ends of that as well and then we've got the one hour of time between that after sunset and before sunrise where I can get my currency done to have passengers with me at nighttime. So i think the question that I always questioned or wondered about was okay, I'm flying back from a trip to Austin. I'm in civil twilight, you can log nighttime flight time in civil twilight so says the books but you. I don't ever log the landing, because it's a little grey there. So I don't ever log the landing if I’m landing there of that and I always I was questioned, could I log that landing. I would think the way I read the regs that landing can't count as a night landing for currency because it clearly states one hour after sunset so, I normally still go do my currency to make sure I can have passengers, I fly almost enough now day and night to where I don't have to go get current again but I’ve kind of got the sliding scale of one here to here when I don't always have three on the same night right. But I’m pretty current next time flyer based on that. So, private students fly with cfi's and they get this guidance to go do these three hours of nighttime and we learned about these human factors of nighttime Wally in Houston Texas. I don't think it counts. I don't think there's very much difference in day night in Houston Texas because they're such a real horizon because of the lights right you fly all around the world. I'm sure you fly some places that are dark. And when I mean dark, I mean instrument almost kind of currency as well because you have no visual reference right and it is It can be a challenge. I've always, I've always thought that one thing that we talk about on check rides his systems and one system that we talk about is the vacuum system or the gyroscopic system in smaller airplanes and what a vacuum pump failure would look like in a given airplane as we're getting into more modern airplanes that that have glass cockpits a lot of airplanes have just totally removing the vacuum system. But I’ve always thought, that as i was a young pilot I probably had three or four occasions before I had three hundred hours where I lost a vacuum pump. And um so, I very proficient with it and as I was an instrument instructor, I would say about sixty percent of the time that my students flew. We covered the gyro instruments and did partial panel. So my students are always very proficient partial panel but you know day vfr, day vmc, the loss of a vacuum pump. I think you would recognize it by out and seeing that hey this artificial horizon or is this attitude indicator is not working properly. It tells me that I'm a twenty-degree bank and I’ve got the wing straight and level. I believe that in imc conditions. You're you've got a game on your us just paying attention to things more and I think you would probably recognize that the one that is always very scary for me as night Vmc conditions your lulled into You know a false sense that everything is fine and a loss of a vacuum pump could, could let you know put the airplane in an undesirable state just by following the attitude indicator. Especially if you've got no horizon. I remember And this isn't nighttime, But this is daytime. I very distinctly remember flying the day after john f. Kennedy jr. crashed his Saratoga up in the northeast. I was going into Norfolk Virginia and we were, It was the day after this happened, and we were out over the water and there was just absolutely no horizon. We're turning back into land there. And I remember coming in the first officer how. What a I mean. It was just brown was Ingraham.
There was a brown- tint How there is absolutely no horizon. And how I could just imagine being out there. In a small general aviation airplane we came in and we landed and then we all got the news that He was missing or at this point. Maybe they've even found him so it can be very tough situation but as you said here in Houston, we have a lot of lights But out in the you know more remote areas it can be quite a challenge.
Yeah, and I was lucky here When I did my nighttime directed training with my instructor we flew out to Galveston and we did our landings at a controlled tower field at Galveston with the tower operating. And what was interesting was we Were out there all alone so we did some, It was calm, We did some landings in both directions because he was really trying to let me see and feel what it looked like. And when you take out over the water In in Galveston. There's a few lights out there because you can see the oil rigs are all platforms. But they're at different depths. So they don't they make almost the bad horizon because they're not all lined up there and what happens is there's no. you get off the runway and you get out over the shore. It's black man. That waters black. And maybe see these few lights but they aren't sequenced in line. So it definitely gives you that sensation that you might feel in the soup of being be feeling like you're leaning one way or turning one when you're not. It's very awkward. So night in Houston Texas Inland might not be that tricky. Because you have a real horizon that you're getting see. But I as I fly further west into Austin there are a lot. There's more hills less territory with housing and lights on it And I have been disoriented a couple times in in the northern Austin territory. Where ten o'clock. No football stadiums have lights on anymore. No tennis courts. No big bright lights are on out there. It can be a little bit surprising just how much you have to depend on those instruments. So if they fail that would be a miserable site whether you were an imc or vmc. It's a might get you off guard for sure.
Yeah so, we talked about the three periods. Obviously the three periods are important to your aviation career on when you can and can't log nighttime. We talked about some strategies. You used to introduce nighttime to students. When you're an instructor you want to talk a little bit of going from maybe five pm to seven pm when the sun sets at six pm that to introduce it to two students.
Yeah, that was the technique I always used is rather than just say, Hey let's show up at ten o'clock at night and go do some night flying I would always have them Come out and fly as the sun went down and we may just stay in the pattern and do that. but First of all you know you're doing the preflight and all that I in the daytime and it just gives it gives a little bit better transition To the nighttime. I believe in in you know after you've maybe you've flown an hour, All of a sudden you comment to the student that you that we’re flying and it's nighttime now and we can't you know we don't have any sunlight or anything so I think it's a better transition. It's what I used. It worked for me. It was actually a suggestion that my father gave me who had been a flight instructor and He suggested that I do it. that way. and so Anytime I wanted to get current on my own to go out. And that's what I would do is I would just Take off just as the sun was going down and maybe go out and fly around a little bit and come in and get my landings done after the one hour. Yeah, this later fall almost wintertime. A year for us here in Houston I joke with people but the sun seems to go down a lot faster. You know once it gets on the horizon. It goes from dusk to dark fairly quick. Whereas I think in the summertime It's got to be the pitch of the earth That causes this. You know you might see dusk for an hour and ten minutes whereas in the wintertime. We see dusk for less than thirty minutes. And that's obviously why civil twilight is a different links throughout different times of the year Which could impact the way you fly in and log nighttime as well. I fly quite a bit between here and Austin. I've said it many times on the podcast. My daughter goes to the university of Texas (hook ‘em ) and we fly there for different events and different occasions and we fly back a lot of a period. Probably the first half of that flight that is much darker than the second half once she kind of get to Brenham.
You can start seeing the city. And it's much easier to see but one of the things that I do with passengers whether they're pilots or not pilots is. I play a little game and myself called Find the beacon. And I’ve got between here and Austin or Austin and here, There's hundreds of airports somewhere on that track many of them private without beacons. But I want to know where the next beacon is that I could use. Or what's the closest beacon that I could use. and I tell myself as I learned and got better and to pilots fly with me, I challenge them, And I still find that people make mistakes on where the closest airport is. Forget that I’m in a g1000 a lotta time. I hit a nearest button. But I do it by sight. So we'll find from Austin will I. One we'll see is probably Giddings. Airport runway lights and a beacon. And I’ll ask him. Do they see it and we know what heading it's on normally. We're looking for it. We're looking for it. Then you find the beacon and you figure out how far is that. Could I glide there? Could I get to that? Is that really the best option for me to land? That's what I’m thinking in a case of immersing and I’ll challenge pilots and then we'll pass Giddings off our left right wing there as getting's goes by and the next one that is going, we're going to cross is normally Brenham and I play the game with people of where we're going to go like right now where we're going to go. and it's almost well, It's probably a little scary that most often people say Brenham right after getting off our right wing and no longer eyesight. We lose the beacon behind us but while a you know the right answer. What's the closest airport?
Yeah, it might. Maybe the one That's behind you. And right behind you. I compare this to the safety breathing. The flight attendants give you on an airliner. They'll say find the nearest exit keeping in mind that the nearest exit may be behind you. So I’ll go one row backing yet. Our other than twelve rows forward to get out of question and normally I quote unquote. Teach them that. Was we pass Giddings. Hey you're thinking about it as we are going to keep moving forward but we have the control to turn this plane back if that's five miles behind us and we're five thousand feet in the air. I know I’m going to make that airport. And if Brenham’s thirteen miles in front of us and I might not make Brenham. Yeah, so And that that would indicate probably a full engine failure but as we get to Brenham, I play that game again. We find the beacon. We know we're college station is we. Know we're the beacon for Brenham says we can see the city of Brenham and as soon as we cross Brenham. I start talking about dan Jones and hooks. And what we're getting to next. And that's a good twenty thirty nautical miles away. And I’ll let some time pass and say okay where we're going to go now and hopefully most of my people that are flying with me. Say back to Brenham. But I’ve had that occasional student that it took multiple times for me to take teach them And educate them Brenham is Still closer right. We're five miles up fifty fifty-five hundred feet in the air five miles away. We'll get to Brenham. we can't get the hooks And so I. I would say at nighttime. Play that game with yourself. Stay alert. use That beacon game two to know where you're going to point the plane to turn and go and keep in mind that the one that's behind these going to be closer and closer and closer for a while. right. There's some point where you're going to cross the line where you want to give up on that one and start looking at the next one for sure right.
What other nighttime tricks Or training tips Have you given other flight Instructors? or maybe You don't do check rides at night, What do you, What do you hear or see in the aviation community that we need to do better with at night while he well? One thing I see is in When I’m looking at an applicant's logbook in for example use a private pilot candida. Private pilot candidate is required three hours of night time they're required to have Ten full stop takeoffs and landings and they're also required to have a night cross country I will usually see all that Documented and most of the people at this airport most of the schools Do exactly what you said: They take students down to Galveston. It's a it's a. It's a nice little trip. They get to go through the i10 corridor through downtown Houston Which is pretty scenic actually and it meets the requirements of the cross country. so it's It's a pretty good Little cross-country trip. But one thing I see Occasionally, and It's not wrong, But I think it violates the intent You know as a private pilot candidate, In addition to the night time you are supposed to have or required to have three hours of instrument time. So what about doing some instrument time on your night cross country.
Well there's nothing that says you can't do it. But I really, I believe that it really, I won't say violates the intent but I don't think you're giving your student the best Opportunity. Because three hours of nighttime is not whole lot. Three hours of instrument time is not a whole lot. Okay so we start mixing those together, You know, what good are we doing? And we're talking about a private pilot candidate candidate I want to give them as much time to look out the window and show him what things look like on the ground. for instance, if we have an engine failure at night and a single engine airplane. Obviously, we're going to go down. What am I aiming for? Am I aiming for lights or am I aiming for dark spots? Well you know probably won't be any aiming for a dark spot So take that opportunity you know. No put them under the hood and get them looking at the at the instruments. Now take an instrument student, Do I think it's valuable to for someone in their instrument training to do some nighttime under the hood stuff? Absolutely, I do but for a private pilot candidate. I kind of think that these ought to be separate.
Yeah, I think. I think people do that. He thinking they're saving some money. And we've done an episode on the economics of flight training where people can understand what we think are good ways maybe to save money but I think as you said that's twelve percent of the regulation minimum six hours of private pilot flight training. We know they're probably going to fly closer to sixty so we're talking ten percent. Let's give them all that ten percent. Don't cut it in half I would say some of the most valuable flight training that I got during my instrument Time was a really windy gusty nighttime that we did approaches at six different airports and probably flew for three and a half hours. and it was bumpy and it was a lot of work and it was stressful. And but I really feel confident that I could fly an approach at night and gusty winds and I wouldn't be I wouldn't be nervous. I wouldn't be worried about it. I might not choose to go like I did that night. But we knew it was going to be a great training night and that the loss of other visual cues whether it be the corner of the foggles whether it by the ground going past you in the in the does that you can see. It really helped me Be a better instrument student for sure when I got to do that tonight but I don't think you should quote unquote double-dip some of those things In the private days for sure.
So I guess with that, We'll wrap up this podcast. Three periods real quick, again: sunset to sunrise. That's when the sun goes down until the sun comes up wherever you're at you need your position lights and anti-collision light on if you have one. That's far aim ninety-one to oh nine and the second period is the end of civil twilight to the beginning of morning civil twilight. You can log night from book into book in there. So you can log nighttime in civil twilight But I don't log my landings in civil twilight. Because I don't think that the far or the aim reference that enough to make that truly nighttime and then the third period is the one that's probably most important everyone And the one, We need to remember and this one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise. That's when we can log out landings. You need three landings to a full stop. So the your current to carry passengers at nighttime. That's far 61.57b so as we wrap the longest night-time day of the year the winter solstice.
We are on that day. So if you haven't done your nighttime currency lately go rent a plane and get nighttime currency passengers and be legal. with that, as always: fly safe, be safe, and Stay behind pro. Thanks for listening. Thanks for checking out the Behind The Prop podcast. be sure to click subscribe and check us out online at BehindTheProp.com behind the prop is recorded in Houston Texas creator and host is Bobby Doss. Co-host is Wally Mulhearn. This shoe is for entertainment purposes Only. and not meant to replace actual flight instruction. Thanks for listening and remember: fly safe!