Terrain Avoidance at Night

tony roberts wrote:
Here's what I do

Go to Landings.com
Enter your route and receive terrain avoidance altitudes
Check it on your charts
Plan route accordingly
Fly route, double checking with your terrain avoidance GPS - highly
recommend the Lowrance 2000 for $700.00

Tony
C-GICE



In article . com,
"Dan" wrote:


My early years of flying were spent in the Midwest where as long as you
were over 2000 MSL, there were very few obstacles to hit and no
terrain. Now that I have moved out West (Phoenix) I am increasingly
paranoid about hitting terrain at night.

Choosing a cruise altitude is easy (well above anything even close to
your route). However, what I worry about is my letdown to pattern
altitude at the destination airport as well as departure. Short of
filing IFR (which carries with it Oxygen requirements for some local
MEAs) what other strategies do you all use? Any "systems" or
tricks to share, or is it pretty much just look at the sectional and
make a plan?

--Dan





Yes, as I was reading this thread I starting thinking how much I REALLY
like my little box with the green triangles, the yellow triangles and
the red triangles. Even flying VFR on the east coast (5 in haze is GOOD
weather) the terrain avoidance as well as the traffic avoidance really
helps. The XM weather will probably end up paying for itself with the
savings in hotels and rental cars for those times you get up in the air
and say, hmmmmm, if this gets any worse, it could be bad. I'll just go
back and try again tomorrow. With the XM sometimes, if you are lucky,
it comes up and shows you are in the worst of it and if you just alter
your flight 20 miles east you will avoid everything.

Margy

Margy

know where you are
know where the ground is
and if lights in the distance start blinking or disappearing
there is either a cloud between you and the light
or solid ground
BT

"Dan" wrote in message
ups.com...
My early years of flying were spent in the Midwest where as long as you
were over 2000 MSL, there were very few obstacles to hit and no
terrain. Now that I have moved out West (Phoenix) I am increasingly
paranoid about hitting terrain at night.

Choosing a cruise altitude is easy (well above anything even close to
your route). However, what I worry about is my letdown to pattern
altitude at the destination airport as well as departure. Short of
filing IFR (which carries with it Oxygen requirements for some local
MEAs) what other strategies do you all use? Any "systems" or
tricks to share, or is it pretty much just look at the sectional and
make a plan?

--Dan

"BTIZ" wrote:
know where you are know where the ground is and if lights in the
distance start blinking or disappearing there is either a cloud between
you and the light or solid ground

This is a crucial point. I am always amazed when I fly licensed pilots at
night and they don't understand BTIZ's point.

At HPN, 29 has a displaced threshold due to trees just beyond the airport
boundary, and no VASI. If you're on final, the trees are invisible, but
the threshold lighting is bright and clear. If the threshold lights
suddenly disappear, that means you've fallen below a flight path that keeps
you clear of the trees.

When this happens, I'll say something like, "You're too low". If that
doesn't get a reaction pretty fast, the next hint is a much more emphatic,
"You need to climb NOW", quickly followed by my taking the controls. Some
people just don't seem to get it.

In a situation like this, the first glimpse you'll get of the trees is when
branches start coming through the windshield.

BTW, if the lights straight below you start blinking, that's because you're
looking straight down through a thin layer of ground fog. You take off a
little before sunset on a clear evening with a small temp/dewpoint spread.
The sun goes down, radiation cooling drops the surface temp 5 or 10
degrees, and suddenly there's fog. Maybe not in Pheonix, but it happens a
lot around here. This is bad news. A 100 foot thick layer of fog makes
the lights twinkle when you're looking straight down through it. On final,
when you're looking through it at an oblique angle, it's zero-zero landing
conditions.

Dan wrote:
My early years of flying were spent in the Midwest where as long as you
were over 2000 MSL, there were very few obstacles to hit and no
terrain. Now that I have moved out West (Phoenix) I am increasingly
paranoid about hitting terrain at night.

Choosing a cruise altitude is easy (well above anything even close to
your route). However, what I worry about is my letdown to pattern
altitude at the destination airport as well as departure. Short of
filing IFR (which carries with it Oxygen requirements for some local
MEAs) what other strategies do you all use? Any "systems" or
tricks to share, or is it pretty much just look at the sectional and
make a plan?

--Dan

Actually, it is pretty much look out the window and make a plan. I have
flown in NM, AZ and CO quite a bit, and at first I used to worry about
this too. Even in the most remote areas of the country, mountains stand
out as dark areas. So don't fly towards a dark area unless you know
what's in there. Sometimes it could be a lake or a low level cloud, but
there are not too many of those in AZ. Don't descend to pattern
altitude unless you have positively identified the runway. If there is
an obstacle between you and the airport, it will stick out as a dark
object. If the dark object is moving up your windsheld, then you better
climb. If it is getting lower, then you are ok. Once in the traffic
pattern, don't wander off too far. Very few airports have obstacles
higher than the pattern altitude within a couple of miles of the
runway, so if you keep a normal traffic pattern you should be ok. Check
the sectional chart for any unusual obstacles.

I live in California. All my night flights outside the Sacramento
valley are IFR and I carry O2.

-Robert

Dan wrote:
My early years of flying were spent in the Midwest where as long as you
were over 2000 MSL, there were very few obstacles to hit and no
terrain. Now that I have moved out West (Phoenix) I am increasingly
paranoid about hitting terrain at night.

Choosing a cruise altitude is easy (well above anything even close to
your route). However, what I worry about is my letdown to pattern
altitude at the destination airport as well as departure. Short of
filing IFR (which carries with it Oxygen requirements for some local
MEAs) what other strategies do you all use? Any "systems" or
tricks to share, or is it pretty much just look at the sectional and
make a plan?

--Dan

"Dan" wrote in message
ups.com...
My early years of flying were spent in the Midwest where as long as you
were over 2000 MSL, there were very few obstacles to hit and no
terrain. Now that I have moved out West (Phoenix) I am increasingly
paranoid about hitting terrain at night.

Choosing a cruise altitude is easy (well above anything even close to
your route). However, what I worry about is my letdown to pattern
altitude at the destination airport as well as departure. Short of
filing IFR (which carries with it Oxygen requirements for some local
MEAs) what other strategies do you all use? Any "systems" or
tricks to share, or is it pretty much just look at the sectional and
make a plan?

It sounds like you could use one of the newer GPS's that have terrain
awareness options. It would be pretty hard to hit something real hard, if
your flight path was not all red! g
--
Jim in NC

On 12 Sep 2006 17:16:19 -0700, "Dan" wrote:

My early years of flying were spent in the Midwest where as long as you
were over 2000 MSL, there were very few obstacles to hit and no
terrain. Now that I have moved out West (Phoenix) I am increasingly
paranoid about hitting terrain at night.

Choosing a cruise altitude is easy (well above anything even close to
your route). However, what I worry about is my letdown to pattern
altitude at the destination airport as well as departure. Short of
filing IFR (which carries with it Oxygen requirements for some local
MEAs) what other strategies do you all use? Any "systems" or
tricks to share, or is it pretty much just look at the sectional and
make a plan?

I am a Midwesterner, but worry about the same when traveling far from
Chicago.

A few thoughts...

1. Review sectionals prior to flight, and make sure you are above the
MEF on all segments. This may not be realistic/practical in all
locations b/c the highest point in the quadrant may be far away from
where you are flying, un-necessarily driving a higher altitude.

2. Buy a Garmin 496 handheld with Terrain database. In addition to
all the other cool stuff, it will give you realtime terrain relative
to your location. The comfort factor is huge.

-Nathan

On 12 Sep 2006 17:16:19 -0700, "Dan" wrote in
. com:

However, what I worry about is my letdown to pattern
altitude at the destination airport as well as departure.

It might be prudent to check here while planning your flight:

http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/AERO/dole.htm
The Airport Obstruction Chart (AOC) is a 1:12,000 scale graphic
(1:18,000 scale graphic for Denver International DEN 9077)
depicting Federal Aviation Regulations Part 77 surfaces, a
representation of objects that penetrate these surfaces, runway,
taxiway, and ramp areas, navigational aids, prominent airport
buildings, plus a selection of roads and other planimetric detail
in the airport vicinity.

"Dan" wrote in message
ups.com...
Any "systems" or tricks to share, or is it pretty much just
look at the sectional and make a plan?

If it's a clear night, stay up high until you can see the airport and then
descend... I once had to go from 14,000 ft to the 2011 ft pattern altitude
in 8 nm due to a TFR between the ridge and the airport... Throttle back to
80 kts, add full flaps, keep adding nose down pitch to maintain an 80 kt
descent... Couldn't even see the horizon through the top of the windshield
in my Grumman... Basically hanging on the flaps in a 2000+ fpm descent... At
around 4000 ft, I started reducing the flap setting and reducing the
elevator trim... Came out right on top of the airport and ready to intersect
the downwind at midfield... Interesting experience...

Oh, PLEEZE keep doing that. My kids need college money and I want a Hawaii
vacation next year. I make a lot of money from shock-cooled engine work.

Jim
A&P IA



"Grumman-581" wrote in message
...


If it's a clear night, stay up high until you can see the airport and then
descend... I once had to go from 14,000 ft to the 2011 ft pattern altitude
in 8 nm due to a TFR between the ridge and the airport... Throttle back to
80 kts, add full flaps, keep adding nose down pitch to maintain an 80 kt
descent... Couldn't even see the horizon through the top of the windshield
in my Grumman... Basically hanging on the flaps in a 2000+ fpm descent...
At
around 4000 ft, I started reducing the flap setting and reducing the
elevator trim... Came out right on top of the airport and ready to
intersect
the downwind at midfield... Interesting experience...