After my previous lesson, my instructor texted me, "hey, how 'bout a night flight next? It's supposed to be warm." I looked at the long range forecast, and while Monday was indeed going to be warm, it was also going to be windy due to a system moving through. I suggested moving our Thursday lesson to the evening since I happened to have the day off from work that day. It wasn't going to be warm, but the winds looked reasonable. We scheduled for 5pm, with being the middle of December was well after sunset.
It was a bit chilly, so my instructor and I tag-teamed the preflight inspection in order to get through things just a bit faster. Fortunately, the plane was parked right under the only light pole on this end of the field, so we could see what we were doing. We were quick, but thorough. I often read stories of folks rushing through their preflight inspections in the cold and at night, but we still made sure we didn't forget anything, except remembering that I had gloves in my pocket.
We took off and headed south because I wanted to get away from the city lights for a bit. Flying at night is "easy" when flying over the city because the lights give you a good sense of a horizon. Flying in the middle of nowhere takes that visual cue away and I wanted to experience that. I got more than I bargained for. We picked up Parker Road, which is our typical route south to the practice areas. Not that we were going to be doing and ground reference stuff at night, but it was an easy landmark to follow into the darkness. Before too long, I noticed that my view forward had gotten very dark, indeed. That's to be expected, as there's not a whole lot out there. Still, I should have been able to see some lights somewhere. I glanced down at the ground beneath us. Recent snows still laid on the ground so I had a bit more definition on the ground than I may have had without it, but something still seemed a bit off. I glanced at my wingtips. The strobes were picking up moderate snow. Apparently there was a line of snow showers to the south of town, and I had just flown into them. We weren't in the clouds because I could still see below me, but we were enough into the thick of the snow where visibility was quite compromised.
My first thought was to do a coordinated "standard rate" 180 turn and head north. We were flying into IMC (instrument meteorological conditions), and that's what you're supposed to do in that situation if you're not IFR rated. I'm not. My instructor is, however, and he seized upon the opportunity. "Give me a steep 360 to the right." A what??? We're flying in IMC and you want me to do a steep turn? But--hey--he wants to walk away from this flight as much as I do, so he wouldn't have me do anything to put us at risk. Okay, I don't have reference outside the window, so look at the heading indicator, not which way I'm flying, rock the wings to 45 degrees, hold altitude, watch the heading indicator and attitude indicator, and make a 360. About halfway through the turn, I see hints of lights sweeping by out of the window, though not necessarily in the direction I thought they should be. I checked my instruments and I was where I should be. No sooner had I finished that turn, my instructor had me do another steep turn to the left. Same thing. Watch my heading and attitude indicators, don't lose altitude, and--again--about halfway through, I caught hints of city lights sweeping through the window. And--again--not in the direction I thought they should be. But my instruments were exactly where they needed to be for the maneuver.
"So, what'd you think?" he asked me. It wasn't scary or unnerving. I've flown steep turns and I've flown without being able to see out the window, so it wasn't anything particularly unusual. However, the disconnect between what my instruments were showing and what I thought I saw out the window was quite sobering. It was a quick (and powerful) introduction to spatial disorientation at night. The lights play tricks on you. Trust your instruments. We flew around a bit more in the almost complete darkness looking down for hints of roads or cars on them, and then by GPS to get us headed back to the airport to do some landings.
You would think an airport beacon would be easy to spot. After all, that's why airports have beacons--so planes can easily spot the airfield. By now we had flown far enough north to where we were out of the weather, so we had a good view of the city lights underneath and ahead of us. Could either of us find that stinking beacon? Nope. I found a dark area which I presumed to be Hess reservoir, then found the power lines that cross south of the field and then flew that direction because I knew I could find the runway from there, even without seeing the airport beacon. I called the tower, they cleared us to land.
Prior to flying this flight, I had spent some time on my simulator doing night landings. I wanted to give myself a sense of what to expect. No, the sim isn't exactly like the real thing, but I figured it would point out things I'd want to pay attention to. The biggest issue I had on the simulator was keeping the centerline lined up. Also, a lack of peripheral vision as a reference for when to time my round-out and flare. I found in the real world, with depth perception to help out, keeping things lined up on centerline was easier than on the sim. Still not easy, because you only have lights on the edge of the runway to help, but easier than on the sim. Not having that peripheral vision to the side to time your round-out and flare, though, that got me every time. We did four landings at this point, and I flared too high on each and every one, causing me to lose airspeed and stall just a bit higher than I wanted to over the runway. "Smooth" was not part of the equation. After our forth landing, I decided I just wanted to fly and enjoy the lights of the city, so I asked the tower for a departure to the west, which they gave me. Once headed west, I handed the controls over to my instructor, pulled out my camera, and started taking pictures. It was a few days before Christmas, and all the neighborhoods were lit up. It was pretty cool.
Completely unrelated to flying, it took me a bit to get the settings on my camera set to where I could get clean, well-exposed photos. I found that even with a good zoom lens, we were simply too high to get the neighborhood lights in any detail, so I just stuck to wide city shots. I also learned my iPhone takes much better night pictures than my old Canon DSLR. Go figure.
After I took a handful of pictures, I took the controls and brought us back to the airport for one last landing. This time, I was going to hold just a little bit longer to try to time my round-out and flare just a bit better. I lined up, held things off until the last moment, rounded out, and THUD! I landed flat on all three wheels. Better than landing on the nose wheel first, but maybe I over-compensated just a bit.
I've got one more required night flight, and it has to be 100 miles minimum. I also need 5 more night landings, so my instructor suggested an idea for our next night flight, a tour of a lot of local airports. I'm not sure when we'll get that scheduled, but I'm looking forward to it.
