Hello all,
This is my first time posting on this site. I'm not sure if this is the correct form to ask this but I'm still a student pilot, I have about 20 hours in the J3, 172, 152, 182, so I was wondering if you guys had advice for my first night flight? What to bring? What to check for, besides the usual checklist? Etc. any advice is appreciated! Thanks.

If you can

do your first night flight under clear skies
do the preflight before dark such that all you have to do is a walk-a-round to make sure nobody has bumped into you
minimize the differences from what you have so far done: no new destinations, no new routes, the only difference daylight

It's great fun, enjoy.

A full moon would be nice. Could be a large black hole out there.

A flashlight with a red led or red lens is super handy. Doesn't blind yoyo nearly as badly if you use it in the cockpit.
David

where there is confusion there is money to be made.

Your instructor.

Welcome BigMoose,
Wait til you see how good your landings are at night. It's harder to see at night when you flare out for landing, so you just set up after round out and let it settle to the ground (at least when practicing no lights landings). I've been flying since I was a kid with thousands of hours, and I have accepted long ago that the airplane can land itself much better than I can.
Have fun!
Tom

Take 2 flashlights! Lots easier to find the first one after you drop it on the floor.

I second having a couple of flashlights. A headlamp is nice. Red and/or green lights are also handy. I found one at Fred Meyer that has white red green and blue. Downside is that it toggles through all the lights to get the one you want. Energizer used to have one that was red/white and I liked it because I could select just the light I wanted.

Red vs Green. I noticed anything red on the chart disappeared when using a red light. I prefer using green.

Know where the fuses are.

Doing a pre-flight in the dark is not a bad thing to do with an instructor to insure you're not missing anything. It's good to get the experience and understanding it's a bit different.

Having your airport diagrams and communication frequency list is even more handy at night.

Enjoy the flight. Night flying can be really fun if it's clear, smooth, and there's a moon out.

Craig

I like having a flash light that I can easily change the batteries. Also bring extra batteries because when you get in the air all a flashlight is is a container for dead batteries

On my first night session the instructor started us out about 15 minutes before sundown and we just went around and around the pattern until it was completely dark. That worked pretty well, got a couple of twilight landings in before it got real black.

I was a punk kid on my first night solo. The weather had been the shits but it cleared that evening, soon after take off and turning right to get onto downwind I went into an unseen bank of low cloud, couldn't see a f'ng thing. I had all those scary stories of losing control in my head and had to seriously focus and force myself to concentrate on the instruments, for this was the real thing and it was a bit of a frightening situation.
After leveling the wings and establishing a compass coarse with the runway , I called the tower and told him the predicament. I'm sure he could hear the anxiety in my voice. This was a big airport with radar and big ass approach strobes and lights and let me know he turned them up to full brilliance . The controller confirmed my heading and told me when to turn base. After getting on base I could just see the strobes and outline of the approach lights through the mist and hastened the descent. I was sure glad to be back on the ground in one piece and was very thankful for that controller's diligence for getting on the situation quickly and calmly.
Don't mean to scare ya but it goes to show that training works. It's amazing how all that shit the instructors pound into your skull actually becomes usefull and can save you life when the shit hits the fan.

My very first lesson was at night, out of Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, on a gorgeous clear night (which of course started with dusk at about 2:30 p.m.), 40 years ago in 6 more days. I've loved night flight ever since.

Make sure all of the lights are working as part of your pre-flight. That's no guarantee that they'll still work when you need them, but at least start out with everything working.

Take a good flashlight with fresh batteries. I've gotten carried away with flashlights, and now have a Flightlite Mic-light installed on my headset boom, a Glovelite which I wear on my right hand, which both have white lights; an AA LED Maglite, a D-cell LED Maglite, a light to clamp onto my yoke board or kneeboard, and even my original still working Rayovac D-cell flashlight, all of which I modified with red lenses.

Being reasonably competent on instruments is important if there's no moon. Although the attitude indicator is important when you can't see the horizon, the single most important instrument is the altimeter, because it's virtually impossible to judge your height above the terrain in the dark. Make a point to never get below 400' AGL until you're on final and in a position to land.

As you are on final, you can tell how your approach is going by watching the shape of the runway lights. If they appear to be spreading on the approach end, you're descending below your glideslope and may land short; if they appear to be spreading on the departure end, you're above your glideslope and will land long.

Although normally I land without power in the day time, I prefer to carry a little power at night until actually touching down, since it's so hard to tell exactly where the runway is.

Cary

All the preceding comments are good ones, especially about backup lights and batteries.

Use a headlamp, or you won't have enough hands. Put it on before you take off, so you don't have to take off your headset in flight.

There seem to be two philosophies about dark adaptation. Some don't worry about it and use bright lights, while others do. I'm one of the latter, especially when flying in really dark conditions, away from big cities. If you are too, make sure your cockpit is set up to preserve your dark adaptation. On some night prior to your flight, sit in the cockpit and turn on the panel lights. Find out if your avionics or panel switches have any unilluminated buttons or buttons having labels which are not illuminated, and learn to find them by touch. Also check for any bright, distracting lights that aren't controlled by the dimmer, and figure out how you want to handle them. If you are using a moving map display, find out how to dim it manually, because if it has an autodim feature, shining a flashlight at the ambient light sensor will cause it to go full bright at inconvenient times.

Before the advent of night vision gear, which works better with green illumination, red was preferred because it preserves night vision better. In other words you can use brighter red light than green. However, magenta on sectionals is invisible in pure monochromatic red light, so for reading maps it is nice to mix in some green or white with the red, or go with green. I drilled a 1/16 hole in the red filter of an LED headlamp, which works well.

Note that in low light, you eyes can't resolve small print as well, so you may need larger fonts for your checklists.

I just finished my dual night cross country. I didn't have a red flashlight with me, and it was a bit of a bummer. All of my flight planning and navlog documents were on my kneeboard, but the overhead map light in the 172 doesn't illuminate that low. I kept having to unclip the paper and hold it up. I think a glove light or clip on headlamp would have been a huge plus. My instructor had an ipad with (fore flight?), and that was a pretty great tool. It had a little scratchpad to copy clearances in Class C with your finger. Without that, I would have been hopeless. Also, the ipad backlight can get quite dim.

hpux, it sounds like you shoulda read this thread first!

Of course, I have to fault your instructor for not having the necessary flashlight(s), or not making sure you had them.

I can think of a number of night flights I've had over the years which would have been pretty unpleasant without a proper flashlight. One that comes to mind happened in a rented 182, when I left Sundance, WY just before dark on a moonless night, bound for Laramie (home at that time). About half an hour into the flight, I had a total electrical failure and couldn't bring the alternator back on line, so I was running on battery. Rather than risk not having enough power for the lights and radios if I needed them, I shut everything down and used my 2D flashlight with red lens to keep an eye on the instruments. When I got to Laramie, I turned on the lights and radios and finished the flight uneventfully.

Incidentally, the Flightlite Mic-light works great for copying clearances, as it shines where you look. The Glovelite is really handy for looking at less than adequately lit gauges to the right side of the cockpit or for finding something that's dropped on the floor--just point and it shines where you point. I replaced the 2 3v batteries with one 3v battery, however, because with 6v it's way too bright. It's a bit awkward to hold a pen with the Glovelite on, however--the material is just a little too thick.

My latest flashlight, which I haven't yet used, is a combination pen and light--click once for pen, twice for pen and light. Theoretically it should be good for copying clearances, taking notes, etc., in the dark. It was a freeby sample from a vendor which provides me with things to hand out to clients; if it works well enough, I may buy a bunch to hand out at fly-ins.

Cary

My primary instructor had 12K hrs in the right seat, and probably half that much in the other seat flying charters, surviving many encounters both out of his control and self-induced. His advice about night flying was pretty basic. In addition to the extra flashlight, staying high, using the VASI's, etc. as stated above, he recommended for the recreational flyer to avoid launching at night over hostile terrain single - engine regardless of weather.

Guess it stuck for all these years. Seems like everywhere I have flown is hostile and night flying scares the poop out of me.

Hi Cary,

My instructor had a flashlight, we used it occasionally, but it was white so not ideal. We were in compliance with the law, and only slightly inconvenienced. Your comment about the gauges is really interesting because the tach had a huge shadow that made it very hard to see the RPM in the 2000 - 2500 range, not important, I know. I figured out that if I put my hand near it enough light would reflect off of it and I could see.

I thoroughly enjoyed the flight, the no landing light approach and landing were particularly interesting. I do those all the time (high flare :p). Also, the interior light out approach was fun. It was a little nice to just fly the plane and stop looking at the damn instruments!

gbflyer,

When I was about 16 my dad took me on a cross country to Olympia from Pearson in Vancouver Washington. On the way back, it was night and over mountains. I was scared to death. I had enough training to know that not seeing city lights ahead is not a great thing. I think flight following got a little tired of us asking if we were at an OK altitude (I begged him to call). I don't think I'm going to be doing night flying, at least not until I am instrument rated, but I'm thinking about that for next winter.