I did 99 percent of mine at night and I highly recommend it. It was easier for me because you don't have the shadows and sunlight moving across the panel.

Kenny Chapman wrote:I did 99 percent of mine at night and I highly recommend it. It was easier for me because you don't have the shadows and sunlight moving across the panel.

hum, you may have a point there.

Rob

Congrats to you Rob. 97%!!! That's awesome!!

Get as much actual as you can, and fly as often as you can.

It's been 7 years or so, but when I got my IFR ticket my CFII managed to get me over 10 hours of actual by picking crappy days and enroute altitudes that were in the clouds. Most of this was in the winter season in the northeast where I was living at the time, so I had several icing encounters as well.

As others have said, the hood is nothing like the real thing, especially if you are "lucky" enough to have actual weather close to minimums.

Have fun with it, but it will be hard work, as it should be.

good job on the written! now get up there with an instructor and enjoy the actual cause the freezing levels aren't going to stay as high as they have been for the last few weeks!

RobBurson wrote:

Kenny Chapman wrote:I did 99 percent of mine at night and I highly recommend it. It was easier for me because you don't have the shadows and sunlight moving across the panel.

hum, you may have a point there.

Rob

"Just a word for the night IFR stuff. For what its worth, if you look at the statistics for light aircraft cracking up flying IFR, a very high percentage of them are at night. So, I guess you could look at that as a good reason to get a lot of IFR night instruction, or a lousy reason for it. "

whynotfly wrote:

RobBurson wrote:

Kenny Chapman wrote:I did 99 percent of mine at night and I highly recommend it. It was easier for me because you don't have the shadows and sunlight moving across the panel.

hum, you may have a point there.

Rob

"Just a word for the night IFR stuff. For what its worth, if you look at the statistics for light aircraft cracking up flying IFR, a very high percentage of them are at night. So, I guess you could look at that as a good reason to get a lot of IFR night instruction, or a lousy reason for it. "

My primary instructor, who has survived 12,000 hours of giving instruction, and at least that much more in the left seat, a fatal crash, a mid - air collision (with flynbeekeeper), and who knows what else, always said there were really very few compelling reasons to launch at night in a single engine airplane, VFR or especially IFR. Now I'm not sure if that's true, but it's always stuck with me. Night flying scares me.

gb

For what it's worth, most of my pro flying career was in the Arctic, and working out of Kotz, Barrow and Deadhorse, I somehow survived a shitload of night, actual IFR hours, mostly in single engine Cessnas. The learning curve was bit sharp at first to get really comfortable, but once I was, I found the night IFR some of the most enjoyable flying I ever did. No whiteout conditions, no spatial disorientation, just a little non-moving cocoon to sit in and watch the gauges do their thing.

But....

It's a hugely unforgiving world when shit breaks, and I was very, very proficient and current with partial panel just to be able to deal with the pump, gauge, and electrical failures. Of course nowdays, partial panel is a whole lot easier with GPS. No more depending on a wet compass for heading info. Almost like cheating, but it's not.

Gump

It's usually not windy or bumpy or hot or real busy at night, just smooth, comfortable and nice. I love night flying, but I used to make a living night flying.
Don't fly night VFR though, unless your instrument rated and proficient, or you will eventually become a Kennedy.
If the engine quits in the clouds, what's it matter if it's dark or not, you still can't see.
Forced landings are better at night anyway. If you don't like what you see when you turn the landing lights on, you can always turn them off.

I did probably 90% of my instrument training at night. I liked it a lot better because it's nicer to fly smooth, cool night air, thus taking a little edge off the already challenging training environment. I like night flying in general just fine, and fly night VFR pretty much all fall through spring. IFR wise I can't see where it's anymore dangerous than day flying, just less forgiving. You just need to be honestly proficient, and then pick IFR or VFR and stick with it. If you cheat the IFR-VFR lines you will get bit.
Not "back country" but flying VFR over a major metropolitan area (specially one that has a corridor over a biggie airport) is really cool. And again probably no more dangerous than flying day...
Flying VFR back country is probably not a good plan...

I'm just a few weeks away from my IFR checkride, with most of my under-the-hood training at night. Here's my take on all this:

- The IFR ticket is worth doing even if you never fly IFR again after the checkride. Its true - it makes you a much better pilot in many ways.

- The IFR ticket changes how you think about flying in that it moves you firmly into the airplane-as-transport mode, and for a low-time VFR pilot this is a big deal.

- IFR training at night is much more realistic than training during the day - less outside cues, more cockpit organization needed, an extra level of wariness, etc. For me IFR in daylight, even under the hood, is a breeze after training at night.

- IFR in actual is very different from IFR under the hood, even though the procedures are exactly the same. The first time you're IFR in actual and realize that you can handle it and that its no big deal is a huge confidence-building experience.

Just my 2 cents...

Rob, congrats on the test score and good luck with the training.

wow, even after lot's of nite hours, in and out of slc a lot, you guys have
it way more dialed than me ! at nite, i feel extremely lucky for that little
s-tec 55 in the dash, especially for 0 dark thirty a.m. departures to the
middle fork. nothin' like a good auto pilot to help deal with the smoke
either...

rating is great... even if you dont plan on flying much IFR...might just save your ass one day..

Wow more thoughts than I imagined. Thank you all. I'll take them to heart.

Fly safe out there...Rob

Actually, you're going to have to exhibit your knowledge of the NDB approaches as well....even though it's a dinosaur these days. And, I believe if you have neither an ADF or a GPS, you're going to have to find a plane with one or the other for part of the checkride. At least, the examiner can require it.

GPS approaches are the easiest approaches in the book, especially with the Garmin 430/530.

As da man says, though, be prepared to answer questions about all this stuff. They can't ask you questions about specific equipment make and model if it's not available to you, though.

MTV

Be wary of an autopilot. It's real easy to become too reliant on one and lose you basic instrument proficiency. Also be real wary of that dry vacuum pump. I replaced mine with an Airwolf, (Pesco) wet pump and will install an electric artificial horizon soon.
Rather than spending the money on an autopilot, I went the wet pump and back-up Horizon route as I can only afford one or the other.