Stan Gosnell me@work wrote in message ...
"Brad Z" wrote in
news:aDEVb.208748$nt4.986888@attbi_s51:

Are you suggesting that flying over the water at night is
not VFR?

I do this for a living, and I'm here to tell you that flying
over water at night is mostly *NOT* VMC. If you're not capable
of, and completely prepared for, flying on instruments, you had
best not be there. People die that way. Not that long ago, a
very experienced helicopter pilot died trying to fly VFR in a
Robinson offshore at night. On a dark night with no surface
lights, it's just like being inside cloud - there is absolutely
no horizon for reference. We only fly in IFR-capable aircraft
with an IFR-current crew. I wouldn't do it alone.

In the U.S. we can even log this as "actual instrument" time (even if
you only hold a non-instrument ticket) even though the weather is
CAVU. If the only way to keep upright is to use the gauges you'd
better be pretty comfortable with IMC.