Night lights, night flights, OLC and records

[Posted on behalf of Jean-Marie Clement
(http://topfly.free.fr/en/accueil.htm)]

Dear gliding fellows,

I have been asked to participate to this thread although I do not read
your newsgroup (by lack of time only).

I own and fly a Nimbus 4DM Night VFR certified. I believe that this is
the only Night VFR certified glider. This is a special design by Schempp
Hirth (with the help of Tilo Holigaus and Biggo Berger) and myself,
built in 1998 but the idea was born in 1995 after a series of full night
landings after wave flights.

There are several independent issues to night VFR flight that must be
addressed separately.

1) The regulations: no glider can fly by night according to EASA (ex
JAR) rules. But TMG (touring motor gliders) can. And German authorities
agreed to make a special certification for my Nimbus 4DM as a TMG. Then,
the required lights are the same as any other aircraft night VFR
certified (flashing beacon on top of fuselage, navigation lights,
instrument lights, maps reading light. No landing light required but I
added one for my safety). The existing instruments were exceeding the
minimum requirement (A/H, T/B, electronic navigation, a.s.o, even though
no VOR was installed). The only difference respect to a power plane is
that it has to be operated IN VICINITY OF AN AIRFIELD APPROVED AND
ILLUMINATED FOR NIGHT FLYING. Of course, a flight plan has to be filed
and the pilot has to be Night VFR rated AND current. This is not written
but I believe that it is self understood by the authorities. In any
case, no insurance company will pay if you do not hold the required
rating. In conclusion, the pilot has to be a power plane pilot with
Night VFR rating (now standard in the new JAR FCL but old pilots have to
fly 5 hours IMC with several night navigation flights and an examination).

2) Practicing Night VFR is an other question. It is very tricky
since the term VFR does not mean anything except that you can fly only
within certain minima of ceiling and visibility (same rules as power
planes). But remember: YOU DO NOT SEE ANYTHING! No ground, no cloud,
just nothing! It is a pure instrument flying, and you need to be trained
for that.

I seriously doubt that one can safely finish a flight for several
hundreds miles if there are some clouds or mountains around. Flying IMC
is very dangerous since you never know when you are out of the cloud and
you will quickly ice and freeze and the canopy shall quickly blind up
because of internal condensation and there is no way to get it away (no
sun, no heating!). There have been many fatalities even with highly
experienced pilots because of that.

3) Why Night VFR flying? Certainly not for what Tom intends to.
Unless he wants to suicide. The German requirement makes sense: remain
in sight of an illuminated runway. Therefore, yes, you can finish a
flight after sunset providing that you always fly under these
conditions. In North Italy, we have an illuminated runway every 30-40
miles, so it is possible to fly the last 200 miles Night VFR safely
providing that the ATC approves your FPL and that there are no clouds or
may be FEW, 1/8 or less).

The original idea in designing my ship was to fly the famous 2.000km at
home, in the Alps, flying 1.000km one day and an other 1.000km the
following day, remaining "parked" at low altitude wave during the night
(not a ridge, remember that you don't see anything!) near an illuminated
airport. I already did it twice but sleeping in my bed during the night!
I had all the necessary clearances and agreements of airports managers,
but too many engine problems made me loose years and finally I found
that flying 3.000km in Patagonia in one day was more exiting than flying
2.000km in 40 hours in the Alps! May be I shall try to fly 4.000km in
Patagonia in 40 hours, but I am now 62 with usual health and fatigue
recovering limitations. Most likely somebody else younger will do it. It
has to be done!

4) The energy is not a great issue. I designed my ship with a set of
batteries in each wing and the fin (all removable after derigging), plus
all standard ones. I have a total of nearly 50 A.H which is just enough.
Of course, I cannot use the transponder during the parking night flight,
I need to reduce the lights to an extreme minimum, few radio messages,
no A/H or gyros. Weather has to be perfect and parking pattern has to be
defined by day and repeated by night with references on the ground (city
lights, highways, runway, angle, PDA with moving map).

I am now changing my lead batteries for Poly-Li-Ion batteries and the
capacity will be far in excess of any requirement. We shall have feet
heating and hot coffee for the whole night! I just removed the
conventional RC Allen A/h (1 Amp consumption) and installed a MGL
Avionics Inertial Unit with 0,3 max. Amp. I am not presently satisfied
with the operation (improvements in progress) but also the RC Allen was
not operating satisfactorily because of too low temperature (-30°C is
common in Patagonia where FL 300 is allowed for gliders).

I believe that it will be very difficult to convert a standard motor
glider to a Night VFR certified one. Cables have to go through the wings
and the fuselage. Since these ships are registered as experimental in
the US, one can do it by himself. In Europe, just forget it. It will be
in any case rather expensive. Remember that the design has to take into
account emergency situations were a set of batteries gets short circuit
and you must continue the flight. I have 3 completely battery separated
circuits and 2 electric bus: avionics and services (lights and heating)
and battery can serve any bus. In case of absolute emergency, I still
can have the landing light on and nothing else using the last available
battery. One portable head light for each member of crew is mandatory
(by law) and will allow the pilots to read the instruments.

I hope that everything is now clear. Night VFR flying in gliders is not
permitted, in motor gliders it is permitted under certain rules. Pilot
has to be Night VFR rated and current (power plane licence and training
required). Safety is a great and important issue and only those who fly
by night may have a true idea of what this means.

With regards to the OLC, it is not illogical to discard flights that are
conducted illegally. But applying this rule would also require checking
that all the necessary ATC clearances for airspace penetration have been
given. In France, this is done for records, not for OLC or equivalent
national NetCoupe. But it would give motor gliders an advantage over
pure gliders.

But how may Night VFR certified motor gliders exist in the world? One,
yes. Two, I don't think so. And the owner of the only one refuses to put
his flights on the OLC since he does not agree with the rule that
imposes to file the flight within midnight of every Tuesday otherwise
flight is invalid. The longest flight ever made in the Alps (1.350km)
had been refused because of that rule which is simply impossible to
fulfil when you outland on Tuesday evening! FAI requires 7 days and I
see no reason for not implementing this rule.

So there is no risk to accept legal only night flights on the OLC! Also
the FAI accepts them.

Cordial regards,

--
Jean-Marie Clément
http://topfly.free.fr/en/accueil.htm

WOW!

Mike Green

Denis wrote:
[Posted on behalf of Jean-Marie Clement
(http://topfly.free.fr/en/accueil.htm)]

Dear gliding fellows,

I have been asked to participate to this thread although I do not read
your newsgroup (by lack of time only).

I own and fly a Nimbus 4DM Night VFR certified. I believe that this is
the only Night VFR certified glider. This is a special design by Schempp
Hirth (with the help of Tilo Holigaus and Biggo Berger) and myself,
built in 1998 but the idea was born in 1995 after a series of full night
landings after wave flights.

There are several independent issues to night VFR flight that must be
addressed separately.

1) The regulations: no glider can fly by night according to EASA (ex
JAR) rules. But TMG (touring motor gliders) can. And German authorities
agreed to make a special certification for my Nimbus 4DM as a TMG. Then,
the required lights are the same as any other aircraft night VFR
certified (flashing beacon on top of fuselage, navigation lights,
instrument lights, maps reading light. No landing light required but I
added one for my safety). The existing instruments were exceeding the
minimum requirement (A/H, T/B, electronic navigation, a.s.o, even though
no VOR was installed). The only difference respect to a power plane is
that it has to be operated IN VICINITY OF AN AIRFIELD APPROVED AND
ILLUMINATED FOR NIGHT FLYING. Of course, a flight plan has to be filed
and the pilot has to be Night VFR rated AND current. This is not written
but I believe that it is self understood by the authorities. In any
case, no insurance company will pay if you do not hold the required
rating. In conclusion, the pilot has to be a power plane pilot with
Night VFR rating (now standard in the new JAR FCL but old pilots have to
fly 5 hours IMC with several night navigation flights and an examination).

2) Practicing Night VFR is an other question. It is very tricky
since the term VFR does not mean anything except that you can fly only
within certain minima of ceiling and visibility (same rules as power
planes). But remember: YOU DO NOT SEE ANYTHING! No ground, no cloud,
just nothing! It is a pure instrument flying, and you need to be trained
for that.

I seriously doubt that one can safely finish a flight for several
hundreds miles if there are some clouds or mountains around. Flying IMC
is very dangerous since you never know when you are out of the cloud and
you will quickly ice and freeze and the canopy shall quickly blind up
because of internal condensation and there is no way to get it away (no
sun, no heating!). There have been many fatalities even with highly
experienced pilots because of that.

3) Why Night VFR flying? Certainly not for what Tom intends to.
Unless he wants to suicide. The German requirement makes sense: remain
in sight of an illuminated runway. Therefore, yes, you can finish a
flight after sunset providing that you always fly under these
conditions. In North Italy, we have an illuminated runway every 30-40
miles, so it is possible to fly the last 200 miles Night VFR safely
providing that the ATC approves your FPL and that there are no clouds or
may be FEW, 1/8 or less).

The original idea in designing my ship was to fly the famous 2.000km at
home, in the Alps, flying 1.000km one day and an other 1.000km the
following day, remaining "parked" at low altitude wave during the night
(not a ridge, remember that you don't see anything!) near an illuminated
airport. I already did it twice but sleeping in my bed during the night!
I had all the necessary clearances and agreements of airports managers,
but too many engine problems made me loose years and finally I found
that flying 3.000km in Patagonia in one day was more exiting than flying
2.000km in 40 hours in the Alps! May be I shall try to fly 4.000km in
Patagonia in 40 hours, but I am now 62 with usual health and fatigue
recovering limitations. Most likely somebody else younger will do it. It
has to be done!

4) The energy is not a great issue. I designed my ship with a set of
batteries in each wing and the fin (all removable after derigging), plus
all standard ones. I have a total of nearly 50 A.H which is just enough.
Of course, I cannot use the transponder during the parking night flight,
I need to reduce the lights to an extreme minimum, few radio messages,
no A/H or gyros. Weather has to be perfect and parking pattern has to be
defined by day and repeated by night with references on the ground (city
lights, highways, runway, angle, PDA with moving map).

I am now changing my lead batteries for Poly-Li-Ion batteries and the
capacity will be far in excess of any requirement. We shall have feet
heating and hot coffee for the whole night! I just removed the
conventional RC Allen A/h (1 Amp consumption) and installed a MGL
Avionics Inertial Unit with 0,3 max. Amp. I am not presently satisfied
with the operation (improvements in progress) but also the RC Allen was
not operating satisfactorily because of too low temperature (-30°C is
common in Patagonia where FL 300 is allowed for gliders).

I believe that it will be very difficult to convert a standard motor
glider to a Night VFR certified one. Cables have to go through the wings
and the fuselage. Since these ships are registered as experimental in
the US, one can do it by himself. In Europe, just forget it. It will be
in any case rather expensive. Remember that the design has to take into
account emergency situations were a set of batteries gets short circuit
and you must continue the flight. I have 3 completely battery separated
circuits and 2 electric bus: avionics and services (lights and heating)
and battery can serve any bus. In case of absolute emergency, I still
can have the landing light on and nothing else using the last available
battery. One portable head light for each member of crew is mandatory
(by law) and will allow the pilots to read the instruments.

I hope that everything is now clear. Night VFR flying in gliders is not
permitted, in motor gliders it is permitted under certain rules. Pilot
has to be Night VFR rated and current (power plane licence and training
required). Safety is a great and important issue and only those who fly
by night may have a true idea of what this means.

With regards to the OLC, it is not illogical to discard flights that are
conducted illegally. But applying this rule would also require checking
that all the necessary ATC clearances for airspace penetration have been
given. In France, this is done for records, not for OLC or equivalent
national NetCoupe. But it would give motor gliders an advantage over
pure gliders.

But how may Night VFR certified motor gliders exist in the world? One,
yes. Two, I don't think so. And the owner of the only one refuses to put
his flights on the OLC since he does not agree with the rule that
imposes to file the flight within midnight of every Tuesday otherwise
flight is invalid. The longest flight ever made in the Alps (1.350km)
had been refused because of that rule which is simply impossible to
fulfil when you outland on Tuesday evening! FAI requires 7 days and I
see no reason for not implementing this rule.

So there is no risk to accept legal only night flights on the OLC! Also
the FAI accepts them.

Cordial regards,

Thanx..
I do not believe there is a "Touring Motor Glider" classification for the
US.
Just, Glider-Self Launch

BT

"Denis" wrote in message
...
[Posted on behalf of Jean-Marie Clement
(http://topfly.free.fr/en/accueil.htm)]

Dear gliding fellows,

I have been asked to participate to this thread although I do not read
your newsgroup (by lack of time only).

I own and fly a Nimbus 4DM Night VFR certified. I believe that this is the
only Night VFR certified glider. This is a special design by Schempp Hirth
(with the help of Tilo Holigaus and Biggo Berger) and myself, built in
1998 but the idea was born in 1995 after a series of full night landings
after wave flights.

There are several independent issues to night VFR flight that must be
addressed separately.

1) The regulations: no glider can fly by night according to EASA (ex
JAR) rules. But TMG (touring motor gliders) can. And German authorities
agreed to make a special certification for my Nimbus 4DM as a TMG. Then,
the required lights are the same as any other aircraft night VFR certified
(flashing beacon on top of fuselage, navigation lights, instrument lights,
maps reading light. No landing light required but I added one for my
safety). The existing instruments were exceeding the minimum requirement
(A/H, T/B, electronic navigation, a.s.o, even though no VOR was
installed). The only difference respect to a power plane is that it has to
be operated IN VICINITY OF AN AIRFIELD APPROVED AND ILLUMINATED FOR NIGHT
FLYING. Of course, a flight plan has to be filed and the pilot has to be
Night VFR rated AND current. This is not written but I believe that it is
self understood by the authorities. In any case, no insurance company will
pay if you do not hold the required rating. In conclusion, the pilot has
to be a power plane pilot with Night VFR rating (now standard in the new
JAR FCL but old pilots have to fly 5 hours IMC with several night
navigation flights and an examination).

2) Practicing Night VFR is an other question. It is very tricky since
the term VFR does not mean anything except that you can fly only within
certain minima of ceiling and visibility (same rules as power planes). But
remember: YOU DO NOT SEE ANYTHING! No ground, no cloud, just nothing! It
is a pure instrument flying, and you need to be trained for that.

I seriously doubt that one can safely finish a flight for several hundreds
miles if there are some clouds or mountains around. Flying IMC is very
dangerous since you never know when you are out of the cloud and you will
quickly ice and freeze and the canopy shall quickly blind up because of
internal condensation and there is no way to get it away (no sun, no
heating!). There have been many fatalities even with highly experienced
pilots because of that.

3) Why Night VFR flying? Certainly not for what Tom intends to. Unless
he wants to suicide. The German requirement makes sense: remain in sight
of an illuminated runway. Therefore, yes, you can finish a flight after
sunset providing that you always fly under these conditions. In North
Italy, we have an illuminated runway every 30-40 miles, so it is possible
to fly the last 200 miles Night VFR safely providing that the ATC approves
your FPL and that there are no clouds or may be FEW, 1/8 or less).

The original idea in designing my ship was to fly the famous 2.000km at
home, in the Alps, flying 1.000km one day and an other 1.000km the
following day, remaining "parked" at low altitude wave during the night
(not a ridge, remember that you don't see anything!) near an illuminated
airport. I already did it twice but sleeping in my bed during the night! I
had all the necessary clearances and agreements of airports managers, but
too many engine problems made me loose years and finally I found that
flying 3.000km in Patagonia in one day was more exiting than flying
2.000km in 40 hours in the Alps! May be I shall try to fly 4.000km in
Patagonia in 40 hours, but I am now 62 with usual health and fatigue
recovering limitations. Most likely somebody else younger will do it. It
has to be done!

4) The energy is not a great issue. I designed my ship with a set of
batteries in each wing and the fin (all removable after derigging), plus
all standard ones. I have a total of nearly 50 A.H which is just enough.
Of course, I cannot use the transponder during the parking night flight, I
need to reduce the lights to an extreme minimum, few radio messages, no
A/H or gyros. Weather has to be perfect and parking pattern has to be
defined by day and repeated by night with references on the ground (city
lights, highways, runway, angle, PDA with moving map).

I am now changing my lead batteries for Poly-Li-Ion batteries and the
capacity will be far in excess of any requirement. We shall have feet
heating and hot coffee for the whole night! I just removed the
conventional RC Allen A/h (1 Amp consumption) and installed a MGL Avionics
Inertial Unit with 0,3 max. Amp. I am not presently satisfied with the
operation (improvements in progress) but also the RC Allen was not
operating satisfactorily because of too low temperature (-30°C is common
in Patagonia where FL 300 is allowed for gliders).

I believe that it will be very difficult to convert a standard motor
glider to a Night VFR certified one. Cables have to go through the wings
and the fuselage. Since these ships are registered as experimental in the
US, one can do it by himself. In Europe, just forget it. It will be in any
case rather expensive. Remember that the design has to take into account
emergency situations were a set of batteries gets short circuit and you
must continue the flight. I have 3 completely battery separated circuits
and 2 electric bus: avionics and services (lights and heating) and battery
can serve any bus. In case of absolute emergency, I still can have the
landing light on and nothing else using the last available battery. One
portable head light for each member of crew is mandatory (by law) and will
allow the pilots to read the instruments.

I hope that everything is now clear. Night VFR flying in gliders is not
permitted, in motor gliders it is permitted under certain rules. Pilot has
to be Night VFR rated and current (power plane licence and training
required). Safety is a great and important issue and only those who fly by
night may have a true idea of what this means.

With regards to the OLC, it is not illogical to discard flights that are
conducted illegally. But applying this rule would also require checking
that all the necessary ATC clearances for airspace penetration have been
given. In France, this is done for records, not for OLC or equivalent
national NetCoupe. But it would give motor gliders an advantage over pure
gliders.

But how may Night VFR certified motor gliders exist in the world? One,
yes. Two, I don't think so. And the owner of the only one refuses to put
his flights on the OLC since he does not agree with the rule that imposes
to file the flight within midnight of every Tuesday otherwise flight is
invalid. The longest flight ever made in the Alps (1.350km) had been
refused because of that rule which is simply impossible to fulfil when you
outland on Tuesday evening! FAI requires 7 days and I see no reason for
not implementing this rule.

So there is no risk to accept legal only night flights on the OLC! Also
the FAI accepts them.

Cordial regards,

--
Jean-Marie Clément
http://topfly.free.fr/en/accueil.htm

If you are flying in conditions where you have excess lift and efficiency is
not critical, couldn't you solve the battery problem by using a small ram
air powered turbine generator? Same principal as what Boeing uses on the
767 for backup hydraulics.

Mike Schumann

"Denis" wrote in message
...
[Posted on behalf of Jean-Marie Clement
(http://topfly.free.fr/en/accueil.htm)]

Dear gliding fellows,

I have been asked to participate to this thread although I do not read
your newsgroup (by lack of time only).

I own and fly a Nimbus 4DM Night VFR certified. I believe that this is the
only Night VFR certified glider. This is a special design by Schempp Hirth
(with the help of Tilo Holigaus and Biggo Berger) and myself, built in
1998 but the idea was born in 1995 after a series of full night landings
after wave flights.

There are several independent issues to night VFR flight that must be
addressed separately.

1) The regulations: no glider can fly by night according to EASA (ex
JAR) rules. But TMG (touring motor gliders) can. And German authorities
agreed to make a special certification for my Nimbus 4DM as a TMG. Then,
the required lights are the same as any other aircraft night VFR certified
(flashing beacon on top of fuselage, navigation lights, instrument lights,
maps reading light. No landing light required but I added one for my
safety). The existing instruments were exceeding the minimum requirement
(A/H, T/B, electronic navigation, a.s.o, even though no VOR was
installed). The only difference respect to a power plane is that it has to
be operated IN VICINITY OF AN AIRFIELD APPROVED AND ILLUMINATED FOR NIGHT
FLYING. Of course, a flight plan has to be filed and the pilot has to be
Night VFR rated AND current. This is not written but I believe that it is
self understood by the authorities. In any case, no insurance company will
pay if you do not hold the required rating. In conclusion, the pilot has
to be a power plane pilot with Night VFR rating (now standard in the new
JAR FCL but old pilots have to fly 5 hours IMC with several night
navigation flights and an examination).

2) Practicing Night VFR is an other question. It is very tricky since
the term VFR does not mean anything except that you can fly only within
certain minima of ceiling and visibility (same rules as power planes). But
remember: YOU DO NOT SEE ANYTHING! No ground, no cloud, just nothing! It
is a pure instrument flying, and you need to be trained for that.

I seriously doubt that one can safely finish a flight for several hundreds
miles if there are some clouds or mountains around. Flying IMC is very
dangerous since you never know when you are out of the cloud and you will
quickly ice and freeze and the canopy shall quickly blind up because of
internal condensation and there is no way to get it away (no sun, no
heating!). There have been many fatalities even with highly experienced
pilots because of that.

3) Why Night VFR flying? Certainly not for what Tom intends to. Unless
he wants to suicide. The German requirement makes sense: remain in sight
of an illuminated runway. Therefore, yes, you can finish a flight after
sunset providing that you always fly under these conditions. In North
Italy, we have an illuminated runway every 30-40 miles, so it is possible
to fly the last 200 miles Night VFR safely providing that the ATC approves
your FPL and that there are no clouds or may be FEW, 1/8 or less).

The original idea in designing my ship was to fly the famous 2.000km at
home, in the Alps, flying 1.000km one day and an other 1.000km the
following day, remaining "parked" at low altitude wave during the night
(not a ridge, remember that you don't see anything!) near an illuminated
airport. I already did it twice but sleeping in my bed during the night! I
had all the necessary clearances and agreements of airports managers, but
too many engine problems made me loose years and finally I found that
flying 3.000km in Patagonia in one day was more exiting than flying
2.000km in 40 hours in the Alps! May be I shall try to fly 4.000km in
Patagonia in 40 hours, but I am now 62 with usual health and fatigue
recovering limitations. Most likely somebody else younger will do it. It
has to be done!

4) The energy is not a great issue. I designed my ship with a set of
batteries in each wing and the fin (all removable after derigging), plus
all standard ones. I have a total of nearly 50 A.H which is just enough.
Of course, I cannot use the transponder during the parking night flight, I
need to reduce the lights to an extreme minimum, few radio messages, no
A/H or gyros. Weather has to be perfect and parking pattern has to be
defined by day and repeated by night with references on the ground (city
lights, highways, runway, angle, PDA with moving map).

I am now changing my lead batteries for Poly-Li-Ion batteries and the
capacity will be far in excess of any requirement. We shall have feet
heating and hot coffee for the whole night! I just removed the
conventional RC Allen A/h (1 Amp consumption) and installed a MGL Avionics
Inertial Unit with 0,3 max. Amp. I am not presently satisfied with the
operation (improvements in progress) but also the RC Allen was not
operating satisfactorily because of too low temperature (-30°C is common
in Patagonia where FL 300 is allowed for gliders).

I believe that it will be very difficult to convert a standard motor
glider to a Night VFR certified one. Cables have to go through the wings
and the fuselage. Since these ships are registered as experimental in the
US, one can do it by himself. In Europe, just forget it. It will be in any
case rather expensive. Remember that the design has to take into account
emergency situations were a set of batteries gets short circuit and you
must continue the flight. I have 3 completely battery separated circuits
and 2 electric bus: avionics and services (lights and heating) and battery
can serve any bus. In case of absolute emergency, I still can have the
landing light on and nothing else using the last available battery. One
portable head light for each member of crew is mandatory (by law) and will
allow the pilots to read the instruments.

I hope that everything is now clear. Night VFR flying in gliders is not
permitted, in motor gliders it is permitted under certain rules. Pilot has
to be Night VFR rated and current (power plane licence and training
required). Safety is a great and important issue and only those who fly by
night may have a true idea of what this means.

With regards to the OLC, it is not illogical to discard flights that are
conducted illegally. But applying this rule would also require checking
that all the necessary ATC clearances for airspace penetration have been
given. In France, this is done for records, not for OLC or equivalent
national NetCoupe. But it would give motor gliders an advantage over pure
gliders.

But how may Night VFR certified motor gliders exist in the world? One,
yes. Two, I don't think so. And the owner of the only one refuses to put
his flights on the OLC since he does not agree with the rule that imposes
to file the flight within midnight of every Tuesday otherwise flight is
invalid. The longest flight ever made in the Alps (1.350km) had been
refused because of that rule which is simply impossible to fulfil when you
outland on Tuesday evening! FAI requires 7 days and I see no reason for
not implementing this rule.

So there is no risk to accept legal only night flights on the OLC! Also
the FAI accepts them.

Cordial regards,

--
Jean-Marie Clément
http://topfly.free.fr/en/accueil.htm

Thanks Jean-Marie for your interesting contribution. I hope that you
agree that you have to be a little bit crazy to want to fly a glider at
night! I have flown single-engine at night and find it hard to believe
that VFR night is permissible - if you have no visual frame of
reference, you're flying IFR in my book.

Although I never ever want to fly a glider at night, I have found
myself in the unfortunate situation at the end of a long cross-country
flight where dissipating clouds delayed my final glide until I
completed my final 100 km over unlandable terrain as sunset approached.
Out here in the western USA, you are often left with the only viable
option of flying till after sunset to land at a safe field. This means
landing before nightfall, but occasionally after sunset.

Rather than not post these flights in a public forum, I think it is
valuable to share the information about what can happen, even to
conservative pilots with well-planned flights. I also don't think it's
very useful to accuse pilots who may have made a bad call on a task of
doing so with the intent of cheating or being unsportsmanlike.
Cross-country soaring involves a lot of judgement calls and sometimes a
bit of risk taking. I'm not sure this is entirely a bad thing.

I suspect that all cross-country soaring pilots violate flight
regulations from time to time - whether it be an inadvertent climb
above 18,000 feet, crossing an airspace boundary, or getting too close
to clouds or people. I just think we should be more forgiving and less
judgemental.

Mike

Mike

Mike the Strike a écrit :
Thanks Jean-Marie for your interesting contribution. I hope that you
agree that you have to be a little bit crazy to want to fly a glider at
night! I have flown single-engine at night and find it hard to believe
that VFR night is permissible - if you have no visual frame of
reference, you're flying IFR in my book.

I think we all have to be crazy to fly gliders ;-)

Remember there have been flights of up to 55 hours in gliders until the
1950's. Night flying has not been a problem, with ridge or wave lift and
a few lights on the slope (flying solo for a so long time without
sleeping proved far more dangerous). Why should something that has been
done in antique gliders and a radio as only electronic aid be impossible
with modern gliders with GPS and flight computers ?

--
Denis

R. Parce que ça rompt le cours normal de la conversation !!!
Q. Pourquoi ne faut-il pas répondre au-dessus de la question ?

"Mike the Strike" wrote in message
oups.com...
Thanks Jean-Marie for your interesting contribution. I hope that you
agree that you have to be a little bit crazy to want to fly a glider at
night! I have flown single-engine at night and find it hard to believe
that VFR night is permissible - if you have no visual frame of
reference, you're flying IFR in my book.

Mike


Yep!

I remember a night VFR leg from Kansas City to Denver. It was past midnight
and a young CFII was flying from the left seat. I often took folks like him
along on long business flights to let them build hours for a possible
airline job while reducing my workload. I was in the right seat getting a
little shut-eye which ANR headsets make possible by reducing the engine roar
to a distant hum.

I awoke for no particular reason and looked up from my reclined position and
saw nothing - no stars at all. When I sat up and looked down, there was
nothing there either. In fact, there were no lights at all in any
direction. Now western Kansas is sparsely populated but not that vacant. A
faint halo around the position lights confirmed it. We had flown into a
cloud deck without realizing it.

"Uh, seen any lights lately?" I asked my pilot. "Hmm, now that you mention
it..., think we should air-file? he answered. A sleepy sounding controller
got us legal again.

On a clear, moonlit night, clouds are visible but on a dark night you don't
have a chance. Had we not been instrument rated, properly equipped and
current, no doubt we would have become yet another statistic.. IFR skills
are realistically part of night flight even if the FAR's don't require it.
When the sun drops below the horizon the gloom of night comes quickly and
familiar visual references disappear. The sky becomes a dark and dangerous
place with deadly traps for the unwary pilot.

Consider for a moment what it would be like in a glider with no visible
references outside and a dark cockipt with unreadable instruments inside.
Add a fogged over canopy you can't keep clear without heat from the sun.
Parachuting from a perfectly good glider becomes the only option. That's
terrifying.

This is not to say that night flight in a glider can't be done with
reasonable safety but glider-only flight training, at least in the USA,
doesn't prepare a pilot for it by a long shot.

Bill Daniels

Very interesting. Thanks for posting.

In US night, as defined for pilot certification, flying currency, and
flight logging, does not start at sunset. It starts one hour after
sunset. Flying a day VFR certificated glider 10 seconds after sunset
is not night flying and requires no special pilot qualification. It
does however require the glider to have approved night lighting. I
assume then that a day vfr certificated glider with approved lighting
may legally fly 59 minutes after sunset.

Do any US registered motor gliders have approved lighting? Have their
owners operated between sunset and night?

Andy

PS my email is - regards, Woody

Andy wrote:
Very interesting. Thanks for posting.

In US night, as defined for pilot certification, flying currency, and
flight logging, does not start at sunset. It starts one hour after
sunset. Flying a day VFR certificated glider 10 seconds after sunset
is not night flying and requires no special pilot qualification. It
does however require the glider to have approved night lighting. I
assume then that a day vfr certificated glider with approved lighting
may legally fly 59 minutes after sunset.

Do any US registered motor gliders have approved lighting? Have their
owners operated between sunset and night?

Andy

Andy wrote:
In US night, as defined for pilot certification, flying currency, and
flight logging, does not start at sunset. It starts one hour after
sunset. Flying a day VFR certificated glider 10 seconds after sunset
is not night flying and requires no special pilot qualification. It
does however require the glider to have approved night lighting. I
assume then that a day vfr certificated glider with approved lighting
may legally fly 59 minutes after sunset.

According to FARs, a pilot with a normal pilot certificate (it's
possible to get a "no night flying" restriction) has no further
requirements for flying at night while SOLO. There is a currency
requirement for carrying passengers:

61.57.b) Night takeoff and landing experience. (1) Except as provided
in paragraph (e) of this section, no person may act as pilot in command
of an aircraft carrying passengers during the period beginning 1 hour
after sunset and ending 1 hour before sunrise, unless within the
preceding 90 days that person has made at least three takeoffs and
three landings to a full stop during the period beginning 1 hour after
sunset and ending 1 hour before sunrise, and-
(i) That person acted as sole manipulator of the flight controls;

The odd thing is that 1.1 defines night:
Night means the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the
beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the American Air
Almanac, converted to local time.

So I guess they want the experience to be in "total darkness"...

And finally, the FAI Sporting Code:
4.5.4 Night flight
A flight that continues beyond the hours of legal daylight in the
country concerned shall not be validated, except where the glider and
pilot comply with the laws of that country for night flight.

So in the USA, this would seem to be Sunset, unless the glider has
legal position lights.

Do any US registered motor gliders have approved lighting? Have their
owners operated between sunset and night?

Stemme and Katana immediately come to mind.

-Tom