Night VFR following highways

Is it a bad idea to fly VFR at night and navigate by following highways? At
night outside large cities, there doesn't seem to be much else that's visible.
It seems to me that if you can clearly see the highway, it can guide you and
you can get a good idea of where you are with respect to terrain, so it should
work. Are there hidden dangers in this? Do night VFR pilots ever/often
navigate by following highways? What other forms of visual navigation are
usable at night?

Mxsmanic wrote:
Is it a bad idea to fly VFR at night and navigate by following highways? At
night outside large cities, there doesn't seem to be much else that's visible.
It seems to me that if you can clearly see the highway, it can guide you and
you can get a good idea of where you are with respect to terrain, so it should
work. Are there hidden dangers in this? Do night VFR pilots ever/often
navigate by following highways? What other forms of visual navigation are
usable at night?

Why would you want to when VORs ang GPSs are available? However, on a
clear night you can see the far away town lights. You just need to be
sure that the lights you see are the town you want. I'll stay with my
GPS for navigation.

--

Regards, Ross
C-172F 180HP
KSWI

Ross writes:

Why would you want to when VORs ang GPSs are available?

Mainly just for practice, in case the radio navigation fails or something.

However, on a
clear night you can see the far away town lights. You just need to be
sure that the lights you see are the town you want. I'll stay with my
GPS for navigation.

What if the GPS stops working?

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Is it a bad idea to fly VFR at night and navigate by following
highways? At night outside large cities, there doesn't seem to be
much else that's visible. It seems to me that if you can clearly see
the highway, it can guide you and you can get a good idea of where you
are with respect to terrain, so it should work. Are there hidden
dangers in this? Do night VFR pilots ever/often navigate by following
highways? What other forms of visual navigation are usable at night?


I use the reflection of the table lamp on my monitor screen.

Bertie

Ross wrote in
:

Mxsmanic wrote:
Is it a bad idea to fly VFR at night and navigate by following
highways? At night outside large cities, there doesn't seem to be
much else that's visible. It seems to me that if you can clearly see
the highway, it can guide you and you can get a good idea of where
you are with respect to terrain, so it should work. Are there hidden
dangers in this? Do night VFR pilots ever/often navigate by
following highways? What other forms of visual navigation are usable
at night?

Why would you want to when VORs ang GPSs are available?

If you're flying a no radio airplane?


Bertie

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Ross writes:

Why would you want to when VORs ang GPSs are available?

Mainly just for practice, in case the radio navigation fails or
something.

Why, you don't fly.
Or is your latest terorist target a night target?


Bertie

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Ross wrote in
:


Mxsmanic wrote:

Is it a bad idea to fly VFR at night and navigate by following
highways? At night outside large cities, there doesn't seem to be
much else that's visible. It seems to me that if you can clearly see
the highway, it can guide you and you can get a good idea of where
you are with respect to terrain, so it should work. Are there hidden
dangers in this? Do night VFR pilots ever/often navigate by
following highways? What other forms of visual navigation are usable
at night?

Why would you want to when VORs ang GPSs are available?


If you're flying a no radio airplane?


Bertie

Then I guess I would follow roads, but might buy a handheld GPS if I was
going to do a lot of this.

--

Regards, Ross
C-172F 180HP
KSWI

Mxsmanic wrote:
Is it a bad idea to fly VFR at night and navigate by following highways?

Please note that MX is xposting to R.A.S.

In rec.aviation.piloting Mxsmanic wrote:
Is it a bad idea to fly VFR at night and navigate by following highways? At
night outside large cities, there doesn't seem to be much else that's visible.
It seems to me that if you can clearly see the highway, it can guide you and
you can get a good idea of where you are with respect to terrain, so it should
work. Are there hidden dangers in this? Do night VFR pilots ever/often
navigate by following highways? What other forms of visual navigation are
usable at night?

About the only reason to follow highways (other than it just happens to
go where you want to go) at night is you are guaranteed that there is
nothing directly above the highway (such as a mountain peak), which is
handy for going through things like passes on dark nights and areas
dotted with high peaks.

However, the only way one would know visually that they are really
over most highways at night is from the real lights of real traffic.

Since there is no real traffic on your simulated highways with real
headlights, why would you care?


--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

writes:

Since there is no real traffic on your simulated highways with real
headlights, why would you care?

Actually, the sim does put traffic on the highways.