Flying at night....

I do not enjoy flying a helicopter at night very much - at least, out of
the pattern. It's too hard to see The Chosen Landing Spot in the event
of a problem.

I finished off the balance of my 5 hours of night required for the
commercial rating late last year, and declared to some friends that I
won't be doing that sort of flying again by choice anytime soon, at
least in a piston ship.

But, that's just me. My comfort zone is probably smaller and more
conservative/"scairt" than other pilots.

Now, in a turbine ship, I might just be willing to pull pitch when it's
Dark Thirty outside 8^) . I look forward to that Decision Making
Process.

Dave Blevins

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 09:20:01 -0800, The OTHER Kevin in San Diego skiddz
"AT" adelphia "DOT" net wrote:


I like night flying. Traffic is usually minimal and controller's
workloads are usually light so they'll let you do more things - i.e.
loiter over my house for several minutes near the approach end at CRQ.

Night over cities and roads is kind of nice. Night over big woods., water,
and dark swamp sucks. I've heard from others that deserts suck too. Every
time I'm over this terrain I turn on my landing lights every so often just
to see whats down there, and always turn-em back off right away cuz its
never pretty. I dont know why I keep turning the lights on, but its probably
like when someone says "here smell this, does this smell bad to you?" My way
of dealing with these trips is to climb up high enough that I can get
flight-following (as long as I dont wind up "on-top" to do it).


Bart

wrote in message
...
I do not enjoy flying a helicopter at night very much - at least, out of
the pattern. It's too hard to see The Chosen Landing Spot in the event
of a problem.