Ab-initio NIGHT FLIGHT INCIDENTS

Re: Ab-initio NIGHT FLIGHT INCIDENTS

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 07:51:20 +0000

I would like to explain an incident that I encountered due to fatigue. As a student, especially an aviation student, I find that we are put under stress quite often as we have to handle two components, the flying aspect as well as the academic aspect. This incident occurred while I was flying early this year. It was during the period of daylight saving where nightfall was later than usual, around 10pm and I had started my night flying training and was really excited about it. The training had gone on for a week and I only had night flights and did not have any day flights as that week was a curriculum week.
The following week, on a Monday night, I had a night flight training scheduled which ended at 11.30pm and the very next day, I had a day flight at 7 am which required me to be at my flight school at 6am to start off with my per-flight and paper work. By the time I reached home and prepared myself for bed, it was close to 1am and I had to be up by 5am to be at my flight center punctually.
Somehow, I had arrived on time at my flight center and started off with the paper work and everything seemed to be fine. As I proceeded to my pre-flight, that too went well. However, when I was signed out for my flight and I sat in the plane doing my start-up checks, started my engine and got my clearance to the taxiway for that day, I could not seem to propel forward towards the taxiway. I tried increasing the throttle as well, to use added power as I was on the grass pavement. Too no avail, did it help. Then I requested to cancel my clearance and shut down the engine to check on what could be the potential problem, only to find out that I had not removed the tie-downs on the aircraft. Taking it lightly, I jumped back into the cockpit and proceeded on with my solo flight. I had taken off from runway 07 and everything was going well when in-flight I realized I was unable to focus on certain radio calls and pick up key information which I was able to do on my other flights. Besides that, my situational awareness was also not that great as well. Carrying on as if it was not an issue, I requested for my approach back. I was cleared to arrive via a left base leg for runway 25. This is a different runway to the one I took-off from.
Despite briefing myself for the 25 approach to the aerodrome, I made a left turn for a right base leg for an approach for runway 07. Thanks to an instructor who contacted me and told me that I had made a wrong turn, I then contacted the Air Traffic Controller and requested to commence a 180 degree orbit and proceeded for a runway 25 approach…this taught me a valuable lesson not to deprive my sleeping pattern and have adequate rest. I certainly hope this lesson of mine helps other students out there trying to rush their flights and complete them as soon as possible.

Re: Ab-initio NIGHT FLIGHT INCIDENTS

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 22:49:31 +0000

Had a com failure during my night flight from PM to WU when I was doing training.

tried different frequencies, com boxes, no use.
squaked 7600, orbited at mid downwind position. used my cellphone trying to ring PM tower, at the same time using the pink pages to confirm all comm failure actions.

did not get hold of PM tower, using transmitting blind, saw green light, returned back to land and taxied back to the school.

Good training from the school and instructors, did what I was trained to do. Did waste the flight though (as I was paying for it), so have to do it all again another night.

Re: Ab-initio NIGHT FLIGHT INCIDENTS

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 05:18:55 +0000

During my night PPL rating, my instructor and I were flying over the city when I saw a green light flash in the left window. I initially thought it was another aircraft's starboard nav light" and mentioned this to the instructor who turned to the right (away from the light). Then the light came back, flashing around the cockpit, we instantly thought "it's a laser", and sure enough it was. Someone down below was painting us with a green laser, but stopped after about 10 seconds. Although nothing really came out of this incident, I think it is a good example of "it can happen to you". I'm sure that most pilots think at some point that this is something that will never happen, whether it's carb icing, mid air collision, busting airspace, forgetting to put the fuel caps on. Lasering was something I had read about, and actually thought "Nah, that will never happen to me". Be ever vigilant and be prepared for the worst.

Low over the fence

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:05:26 +0000

In my night training i was completing circuits at Feilding Aerodrome. After a landing into the runway i was running out of runway to dump the flap and through to full power. But i did it the fastest i have ever done it in my life. It seems it took forever for the aircraft to accelerate to rotate speed, in which i ended up rotating early anyways. I was barely climbing and really worried about the end fence. when i passed over the fence it looked liek i was very low and now had to worry about the houses and trees after that. However speed increased ROC increased and i was able to continue climbing away at best ROC. So if ever in doubt go around, make it a fiull stop and backtrack

Importance of Courtesy

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:19:50 +0000

While training for my PPL night rating my instructor drilled into me the notion that it was good airmanship and good courtesy to taxi without landing light and strobes should it interfere with the operations of other pilots. I learnt the importance of such courtesy one night when I was practising circuits towards the end of my training. I had completed several circuits (tower off watch) already and was focussing on making good landings before my rating test, but did not notice that the mail plane had begun its operations for the night and had begun to taxi towards the holding point for the runway. On my final approach I was nearing tochdown and passing abeam the holding point when the mail plane's pilots decided to switch from taxi to landing lights. The surprise of being so suddenly and brightly illuminated caused me to glance sideways at the other aircraft just as I was nearing touch down resulting in a very messy and uncomfortable landing. From my point of view this was very poor airmanship and a lack of common courtesy to others on the behalf of the mail plane's pilots that could have ended up much less favourably. Since then I have better understood the need for understanding between pilots sharing airspace at night and try to ensure that my operations on the ground do not distract those already in the air. This can be as simple as not using strobe lighting on taxiways or leaving the landing light off until lined up on the runway, especially when taxiing in the direction of the operating runway.

Re: Ab-initio Dusk Fuel

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:11:50 +0000

Reasonably early in my training my flight was scheduled in the late afternoon- close to ECT. This in itself was fine and with tight scheduling expected, to a degree. Another requirement of that flight was that i refuelled after completion to prevent somone else running over time in the morning by the necessity of a refuel. Problems arose when i was unfamiliar with the layout in the coming dark and entered the refuelling station at the exit- i realised this and correctly dealt with the situation before denting the wing on the NO ENTRY sign!

Re: Ab-initio NIGHT FLIGHT INCIDENTS

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:58:52 +0000

During my first night flight the instructor decided to do a touch and go at Feilding due to a large amount of traffic operating at Palmerston. We commenced the turn on to finals and the Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI) lights were full red telling us we were low. We decided to fly level and intercept the profile however we didn’t realise how low we were until a tree passed about 20 feet away from the wing tip around 10 feet below us so we immediately went around. Given that it was at night and we had full red on the PAPI we should have gone around after that initial turn onto finals.

Re: Ab-initio NIGHT FLIGHT INCIDENTS

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:10:43 +0000

it was one of my last night flying when i had to do just 0.5 hours to complete and achive the minimum hours needed. i had to do just 4 or 5 touch and gos and that would be it. the first few happened and everything went fine but the last was something i never expected to happen. there were 3 of us in the circuit and out of the three was me and my friend. he was behind me on a short finals when i touched down for a full stop but before i could taxi into the holding area at yankee, my engine died on me. and i was positioned almost half entering the holding area and the otehr half (my aircrafts body the fin and all) were still on the active runway. i knew he was really close behind me for a landing and at that moment the first thing i thought of was to switch the engine on and get off it asap. so i tried and it didnt work. then i heard his radiocall saying that he was on short finals and i tried it one last time to switch the engine on and it did. i taxied as fast as possible out of the runway and turned back to see him take off. when i went back and met him in the walkway i told him what had happened and he was just shocked as he didnt even realize that i was still partly on the runway…. close shave!

Re: Ab-initio NIGHT FLIGHT INCIDENTS

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 22:58:25 +0000

During my solo night flight i went to fielding, and did a standard overhead rejoin to do a touch and go at fielding, i figure out where runway traffic was, and which is the traffic side and non traffic side, however, once im overhead, i normally overhead coming inbound from Palmerston, but this time i came in from different direction, then i started to get confused, i become disoriented, and fly overhead fielding AD. i flew overhead for about 10 minutes try to figure out the traffic direction, because it was at night, its really hard to see and pin point things. I was preoccupied on putting my head down to much on a landing charts, then i didn't realize that my aircraft is descending to the traffic side and i was at the traffic circuit altitude which is 1200 feet, lucky there was not any traffic around, if there were a traffic i would have been colliding with them.

nose wheel landing at feilding (light)

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:21:56 +0000

As i remember that was my third solo night flight. And the last time i had a night sortie was probably 2 weeks ago or so ( due to weather or whatever reason they just never didnt schedule me), and its the first time I ever landed at feilding at night solo. Cleared bunnythope departure off 25 and track to feilding as usual. Done all the checks and standard over head rejoin was sweet, until when i was crosswind the runway was suddenly gone, so i took out my feilding aerodrome info plate immediately and turn the lights back on straight away. ( My instructor had never briefed me on this so i was a little bit shocked especially its the first time to land at that aerodrome at night). Downwind, base and final was ok until when i was just started flaring the nose wheel had touched the runway and the aircraft bounced, then i just put on a little bit of power and landed normally. To a certain extend, the reason of this incident is because i was not current in night flying and they should schedule me as soon as possible after my dual sortie. ( not 2 weeks)

Misconceptions during night flight

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 03:25:59 +0000

[In behalf of Anonymous user, originally posted on 21 Oct 2008]

I was cleared a university departure off 07 at PM for a night flight into the southern training area with a passenger in the right seat. I reported clear of the zone at the university and changed to Manawatu Traffic, made a position report and stated my intention to track south towards Levin. I then heard a report from a pilot stating that they were in the vicinity (southwest from memory) of Tokomaru tracking to PM. So I'm looking out frantically for some position lights, a landing light or strobes to give some indication of where the aircraft is, while trying to work out why they would be tracking to PM via the uni when 07 was in use and explaining to my passenger what I think is going on. Assuming the other aircraft was tracking in my direction I was gradually altering heading (unconsciously) to the right. After a couple of minutes I assumed the aircraft must have gone past me and so resumed my track to the "south".

About a minute later PM tower called me up on 122.6 MHz to ask me if I realised I was tracking towards Kairanga! I was basically tracking along the southern boundary of the CTR but because I hadn't even realised I had turned, I hadn't clicked that what I was seeing wasn't what I was assuming it to be. I apologised and immediately altered heading left to track for Levin (my original reference point). The rest of the flight continued without further incident.

There were a number of misconceptions that occurred:

1) I had a passenger whom I allowed to distract me when I should have been concentrating on departing the CTR safely
2) Although the other aircraft reported Tokomaru tracking PM, they were intending to track via Longburn, not via Uni as I assumed
3) Aviate, Navigate, Communicate - I failed to aviate accurately, altering heading without realising and then failed to identify that I was off-track by referencing what I was seeing against my VNC
4) I should have been referencing the DI/compass to confirm correct heading

It's pretty easy to become disoriented when flying VFR at night, I've found I need to concentrate constantly to be sure that what I think I'm seeing is actually correct. Has anyone else found that or is it just me!

Checks during stop & go at night

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 03:23:35 +0000

[In behalf of Anonymous user, originally posted on 20 Oct 2008]

I was night flying in the PM circuit with tower still on watch when I was instructed to make a full stop on the runway due wake turbulence. I made a standard landing (65kts with 3 stages of flap). I was then cleared for takeoff and proceeded with a standard takeoff roll, but noticed that the aircraft became airborne at a slower than normal airspeed and felt very unstable. I then noticed that my rate of climb was very low and became concerned about the aircraft's performance and prepared for the possibility of an emergency landing on the remaining runway. I did a quick FMI check (including carb heat) and on checking quickly around the cockpit I noticed that the flap lever was still set at 3 stages.

I had forgotten to retract the flaps after my full stop on the runway and failed to check them before takeoff, something I always do during a touch & go but forgot on this occasion (possibly due to a non-standard procedure and lack of visual cues at night). So I retracted the flaps in stages and was able to continue with a normal climb-out.

So I guess this is a "learn from my mistake" situation!