If you suffer a mechanical emergency and need to land, it will take longer to find a suitable site in the dark than it would during the day. Give yourself time by giving yourself altitude. Headlamps , powercaps , and strap-on LED finger lights are just a few of the innovative portable lighting choices you can use to supplement your cockpits lights and flashlights.
These all keep your hands free for flying while illuminating whatever you need to see in the cockpit. Even if you would normally fly direct during the day, for safety reasons, you may wish to plot a course that keeps you as close as possible to airports throughout the duration of your night flight. This provides more dedicated safe emergency landing sites and decreases the potential for you needing to make an unplanned night landing in an unlit remote location.
Keeping a rescue laser light on you could be a lifesaver if you were forced to make an emergency landing and needed to signal for help or even if you simply needed to locate a reflective object in the dark. These lights can be seen up to 20 miles away at night and up to 3 miles away during the day. The FAA analyzed night flight accidents and compiled a list of the most common accident inducing errors that pilots have made while flying at night. Even if you plan to be back well before dark, planning and packing as though you will return at night is a prudent move.
If your return trip is delayed due to weather, mechanical problems, or other factors, you will be prepared. While airplane deicing and remaining alert to the potential for icing conditions is always important, ice at night can be even more dangerous than during the day. In the dark it is harder to see the ice beginning to accumulate, and without the sun to warm and help sublimate a buildup, you could quickly run into trouble.
Read Weather Flying to refresh yourself on the hazards and considerations of all kinds of weather concerns including deicing. If you fly in during the day, you naturally expect the FBO to be open, fuel to be available, the control tower to be staffed, etc.
Depending on the size and location of the airport, the same may not be true at night. Confirm all of these details prior to departure to avoid unpleasant surprises. Pilots can fly VFR visual flight rules at night, but pilots who have IFR instrument flight rules training and experience will often find it easier to trust their instruments when flying in the dark because they are already used to it. The first time you come in for a night landing and see the jumble of lights below you, it can be disorienting.
Before your flight, review the aircraft, airport, runway, and approach lights that you will see. Practice identifying them and review what each means. Night vision is crucial for seeing objects outside. Guard it by adjusting the brightness of your lights to be as dim as possible while still allowing you to easily read instruments. For portable lighting, consider red filters or lights that have the option to select either red or white. Non-towered airports or airports that are non-towered during the night may have a pilot-controlled lighting system PCL.
These systems are usually activated by keying your mic multiple times on the CTAF frequency. The number of times you key up controls the lighting intensity. Since lights turn off automatically fifteen minutes after activation, it is important to time your activation properly so you will have safely landed by the time the lights go out. Even on a clear night, it can be challenging to see dangers ahead of you.
The US Federal Aviation Administration FAA requires pilots to carry out at least 3 takeoffs and landings up to a complete stop in the previous 90 days during the period that starts one hour after the sunset and ends an hour before sunrise, and that:. Technological advances in aviation are directly linked to flight safety. In fact, VFR flight is the product of advances in avionics, which allow for the constant addition of new capabilities and improvements to each helicopter.
In this way, some advantages of the technology during the flight are clear and immediate information available to the pilot, greater situational awareness and safety in flight, a lower workload for the crew, and constant recording of aircraft performance for maintenance.
One of the most recognized helicopter avionics systems in the world is Helionix, designed by Airbus Helicopters to offer greater flexibility in each mission. In fact, the company recently reported that the system exceeded , flight hours, proving its popularity by equipping more than helicopters around the world. Among the main strengths of Helionix are, according to the company, its navigation system, as well as communications and traffic warnings.
In other words, improvements that promote safety and convenience in the air. We will focus on communications, specifically with satellites. Unlike airplanes, helicopters lacked the ability to incorporate satellite communication systems because the signals could not pass through the rotating blades. However, an advance was successfully proven in by the company Viasat, which developed the technology that, through waves, gives helicopters the possibility of using satellite communication in flight.
This opens up a world of opportunities for ambulance flights, allowing medical crews to exchange information with personnel on the ground, or for military purposes, facilitating, for example, the exchange of reconnaissance images with ground teams. In fact, Viasat proved its technology aboard a Sikorsky UH of the US Navy, demonstrating that the advances in this technological era have no limits.
Because flying at night imposes a number of additional challenges, the safety recommendation is to use a twin-engine helicopter. Likewise, an undisputed benefit of using a twin-engine aircraft is operation in the city, where there are strict operating regulations for certain urban routes, which can only be operated by this type of aircraft.
A single-engine helicopter will still be able to fly in the city, but using restricted airways only. For many single-engine pilots, that means fewer hours of flying, since they prefer not to fly at night.
For those who do, filing and flying an IFR flight plan is even more advisable. Having a second set of eyes following the progress of the flight can be a lifesaver, especially when visibility is reduced in darkness.
And it's not just the view out the window that is compromised. One of the under-discussed hazards of night flying is that all the familiar controls, switches and levers inside the cockpit are cloaked in gloom after dark. Of course yoke, throttle, mixture and prop controls still ought to fall naturally to hand, but lesser used cockpit hardware — cowl flaps, fuel selectors, pitot heat, and so forth — require extra attention when a simple glance isn't enough to locate and verify configuration.
Two specific hazards come to mind related to night flying. First, irregular rising terrain can be invisible, even when the weather is good. Especially in remote mountainous areas where ground lighting can be minimal or non-existent, controlled flight into unseen outcroppings of peaks has claimed many a VFR night flight.
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