Updating my night currency – what a blast!
October 28th, 2008. Filed under: Local Flights.It was a dark overcast moonless night. It was also two days before my Portland trip, which had a high probability of a late return – with a passenger. I needed to get my night currency up to date.
The FAA states that in order to carry passengers at night, I need to have completed three take offs and landings to a full stop (no touch and go’s) 1 hour after sunset within the last 90 days. It’s been a long time since I’ve done any night work – over 18 months as part of my pilot training. I haven’t had the need or the desire to go up in the dark since I got my ticket. But in two days, I was going to take off for my longest flight yet… and I wanted to make sure that I had all the tools possible to get home safely. That meant getting night current.
The winds were intermittently strong as I preflighted the plane. A front was supposed to come through later tonight around 10pm. It was now 8:00. Vis was over 6 miles, ceilings were 4500. Pattern altitude for POU is 1034. I only needed about 45 minutes to get in my requirements. Things looked pretty good. I was even thinking after I got my “work” done, I might head over Poughkeepsie and the Mid-Hudson Bridge. They are very pretty at night.
Winds were 340 at 5 so runway 33 was in use. I got permission from Ground and taxied over. I did my run up – with senses even more keen than usual, knowing that this is not my typical “last chance to check everything”. This was all that AND it was a night flight too… so risk levels are heightened so senses heightened too looking for any potential trouble. Dialed the tower and got permission to launch. “Left turn out, report mid-field down wind.” I taxied onto the runway and pushed the throttle in.
Got above the tree line and holy cow, I was getting pushed all around! It felt like someone was grabbing the tail and yanking it to the left. Lots of rotation and bumps. Sheesh! I guess that front is coming in sooner than predicted.
I turned down wind. Vis was great. I was parallel to the runway…. called the tower. “Clear to land 33.” Fought the gusty cross winds all the way down but squeaked the landing perfectly. WOW! That was challenging, fun. Time to take a quick breather.
Taxied back to 33. Did run up. Got clearance for take off, but then the tower added “this will be the last call with us. We’re closing up for the night.” It was just before 9:00p and FAA had recently changed the tower hours from an 11:00p close to 9:00p due to the low amount of traffic during that time (less than 4 flights per hr). The controller continued to tell me that they would be turning off the lights and that pilot controlled would be available. The catch is that it’s only available on runways 24/06. I acknowledged and launched for the second time into the dark.
When taking off, and in particular when you are doing pattern work such as this, it’s typical as you turn out you look at the airport to confirm your orientation/location. Do you remember this part in Airplane! when Johnny the office boy pulled the plug on the runway lights?
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That’s how it was for me as I turned around to get my bearings! I turned to look for the airport.. it was GONE. A big black hole. It was pretty weird experience. I quickly keyed the mic five times to turn the lights on to medium intensity. Ahhh… that’s better.
I turned out to the right and worked my way south of the airport three miles to set up a 45 degree entry for a left downwind for runway 24. Winds were starting to kicking up even more. I could feel the gusts becoming very prominent. AWOS was reporting 350 at 8 gusting to 12. I worked my way over to 24 and enjoyed another challenging but smooth landing.
Taxied back to 24 to do it one more time. Launch left turn. During the down wind I looked around and noticed that the city lights were getting misty – a sure sign of rain and low clouds approaching. So, between the gusts and the vis it looked like this would be my last landing for the night. No night touring for me tonight.
On my base leg, I noticed that I was getting blown significantly towards the runway. Turning final, I had to correct for significant cross wind. My ground speed was quite a bit faster than normal too. With a 5000’ runway I wasn’t concerned about landing long and touched down about mid-field. Whew. “What the heck just happened that gave me so much ground speed? Did I goof something up? ” Then one look at the windsock gave me my answer. While in the pattern, the wind shifted around and increased in speed. I tuned to AWOS and it was now reporting winds from 010 at 11 gusting to 15. Wow. That explains it. I just got a ride on a quartering tailwind.
With my requirements done and wind increasing, I taxied to the tie down for the night. As I was closing up the plane, winds got very strong and it started to rain lightly. This was surely a moment for when it was better to be on the ground wishing I was flying than flying and wishing I was on the ground!
With night currency in the log book, I was ready for my Portland Maine trip on Thursday.
How often do you recreationally fly at night? What are your personal minimums when doing so?
