FAA PPL night flight requirement - does it have to be DUAL?

"Peter" wrote in message
...

"Paul Sengupta" wrote

So my night flying was legal, in fact it was done fully IFR, mostly in
IMC, because I can do that in the UK outside Class A with my night
rating and IMC rating.

Didn't you do a suitable cross-country for your night rating?

Not quite; the FAA night x/c needs to be 100nm total and can be either
A-B-A (where A-B is 50nm in a straight line) or A-B (where A-B is
100nm in a straight line).

I did do well over 100nm (dual) but not between suitably distant
separate locations.

It also needs 10 takeoffs and full stop landings all done during
official night (called Civil Twilight in the USA). I think for the NR
one needs just 5.

Not many UK PPLs with the night rating will have done that particular
combination as there is no need for it.

I know for a fact that some US-based flying schools have accepted a
*solo* night x/c flight, but due to lack of time to do this in the USA
I am following the much more complicated and expensive UK based route
and the few "methods" of doing it here won't accept this

The establishment also refuses to accept any of my current 25 dual
instrument hours towards the FAA IR 15-hr dual requirement (which any
of the schools in Florida accepts OK) but that's another story...


Peter.

As I have said before my training for the night qualification done in Naples
ensured that I did the necessary take offs and landing and cross country to
meet the US requirements but also included the 5 solo take offs and landings
required for the night qualification. Total time was 6.5 hrs.

As far as the instrument time is concerned, get another training
organisation if you can. The IMC rating training time is allowable towards
the training requirement for the FAA/IR. The school is trying to stiff you
for additional time. In theory you only need three more hours of training
being signed off by a FAA CFII. The rest of the instrument time can be done
with another PPL acting as your safety pilot whilst you practice approaches
etc.

The one thing IMC rated pilots seems to excel at despite the limited
training we have to do is partial panel flying. My US instructor remarked to
me that all his British IMC rated students were far better than average on
partial panel.
Mind you, most of my 15 hours was done on PP anyway.
FWIW, the training done for the IMC renewal was also accepted. At the end of
the day, I went to the US with 30 hours on instruments, over half being
training for the IMC and the renewals, flew another 25 hours in simulated
and actual IMC and passed the checkride.
The DPE checked all the numbers with me and he was entirely satisfied.

"Peter" wrote in message
...

Peter Clark wrote

Reading FAR/AIM 2004 it isn't entirely clear to me because different
sections refer to day and night cross country, and I don't think the
description of a day cross country applies to the night flight; the
distances are 150nm and 100nm respectively.

I have night flights with an instructor which exceed 100 miles in
total distance, and I have a solo night flight which exceeds 100nm
which was done between two airports whose direct line spacing is
119nm.

I suspect that the information on the basis of which I did the last
flight was bogus and I don't meet the FAA PPL requirement.

Can anyone suggest the FAR/AIM 2004 sections which could clarify this?

You want the FAR, 61.109(a), paragraphs 2 and 2(i) - "Except as
provided in 61.110 of this part, 3 hours of night flight training in a
single-engine airplane that includes (i) One cross country flight of
over 100 nautical miles total distance; and (ii) 10 takeoffs and 10
landings to a full stop (with each landing involving a flight in the
traffic pattern) at an airport."

You meet the night cross country requirement with either flight listed
above. There's no requirement for a solo night cross country of any
distance in the regs. If you've done 10 night takeoffs and landings
you meet the requirements for that part of the reg.

The long solo cross-country (150nm) is 61.109(a)(5)(ii) - 150nm, 3
stops, one segment of which needs to be between 2 airports 50NM apart.
If you happened to do this at night, great - the reg doesn't say it
has to be done during the day, but the solo flight mentioned above
doesn't count unless it was over 150NM (the 119NM apart meets the 50NM
distance, but not the total flight distance and 3 landings).

This generated quite a long thread, with a lot of people saying that
"training" implies a flight with an instructor present.

I wrote to the FAA with a full disclosure of my logbook entries. After
a few months, they wrote back saying:

Response (Joel Wilcox) - 01/04/2005 01:20 PM
It appears that you meet the night experience requirements. However, you
should review these times against the night experience requirements in 14
CFR 61.109(a)(2), which can be viewed he
http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text....1.1.2&idno=14

Regards,

JW

So, either they did read my question and are saying that doing the
night flights solo was OK after all, OR they haven't read my
question...

It doesn't matter now, but I think one should get a better response
time from the FAA.


Peter.

You have been over the ground on this one a few times Peter on this NG and
the Flyer forum. You will not get a better response from the FAA. The
responses that count are from FAA Counsel (the lawyers). You can ask 5
different FSDOs the same question and get five different answers/opinions.

So what's new? Ever had a straight answer from the CAA?