Night flights and runway lights.

[Jim Peace]

And you don't worry that your two reliable engines have double the chance for a failure at night as your Mooney's one reliable engine? If your Mooney engine isn't reliable, it would worry me to fly it at all . . .

WTF........

[Jim Peace]

Flying back from Mom's Turkey dinner last night over the Everglades I did think about the engine out complications of night flying some of the posts above mention. 

Even daytime over the Everglades in a single is dangerous, not many places to glide to.  Just take an airboat ride at anyone of the places along alligator ally and you will see why.  If the crash does not kill you the gators/pythons will. I rather go down in the open ocean and take my chances with a remote chance of a shark attack instead of nearly a 100% chance of an alligator attack.

 

If you fly over the Everglades you should really take an airboat ride and then picture yourself wading in that water, more than likely injured and bleeding for a couple of hours waiting for help. 

[ArtVandelay]

Question, if you had to land in the dark with no airport in gliding distance, would the next best option be a lake? I guess it depends on suspected terrain. At least you would know you won't hit anything and chances of fire would be minimal.

[dcrogers11]

I don't fly at night as I don't like the noises my engine makes only at night.    That and being color blind disqualifies me from flying at night anyway according to the FAA. 

Don

[Jim Peace]

Question, if you had to land in the dark with no airport in gliding distance, would the next best option be a lake? I guess it depends on suspected terrain. At least you would know you won't hit anything and chances of fire would be minimal.

yes....and I would activate my 406 ELT w/gps input on way down.....

 

hopefully you can marry the shore line and have a bright ass landing light.  probably set it up ike a float plane landing...just hold "X" rate of descent until .......

 

then hope the alligators are not curious or hungry....good luck with that one

[Piloto]

Even if you have lights on the runway you may not see that sleeping cow on the runway.

 

Next time when there is no lights try one of these:

 

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Yukon-YK25025-1-x-24mm-Night-Vision-Tracker-Goggles/16349632

 

Night vision goggles are widely used by the military.

 

José

[Ftlausa]

Jose,

 

  It would be interesting to try to fly with night vision goggles.  Unless they have improved a lot since my military days, the depth perception with them sucks. 

[GIVCAPT]

And you don't worry that your two reliable engines have double the chance for a failure at night as your Mooney's one reliable engine? If your Mooney engine isn't reliable, it would worry me to fly it at all . . .

Hank,

 

I take it you're not a professional pilot and you don't make your living by flying,hence your uneducated and lack of knowledge response.

[Hank]

Hank,

I take it you're not a professional pilot and you don't make your living by flying,hence your uneducated and lack of knowledge response.

An engine has X% chance of failure on any given flight (the exact value does not matter). Two engines, each having X chance of failure, has a total of 2X chance of failure.

Unless you're flying a twin turbine, which has a lower failure rate than any piston, but are rarely owned by an individual.

Funny, how many pilots who fly multi-million dollar, multi-engine turbine aircraft owned by one corporation or another become so reluctant to make the very flights required of all students in order to finish their PPL (night flight, night XC, etc.) in underpowered, single-engine piston aircraft. But then again, you don't pay for the plane, the fuel or the upkeep . . . Just saying.

And no, I'm not a paid pilot. I own my plane, buy the fuel, perform much of the maintenance and do my own flight planning and dispatch. I am an engineer and understand and use statistics in my daily job. I stand by the above comments, complete with the turbine exclusion. Two engines have twice the chance of failure of a single; twin turbines have twice the chance of failure of a single turbine; turbine failures are much less common than piston failures; turbine airline & corporate pilots are reluctant single engine piston pilots. Where did I go awry?

Yes, night flight is usually calmer than day flight, as weather systems often subside at night. The radio is less busy, as fewer of us are flying. The risks at night are different then the risks during the day. But many of the risks can be mitigated without eliminating the flight or "upgrading" to a twin. Look at the twin accident rate and you'll see how effectively many twin pilots mitigate the risks--not well at all. Often the second engine contributes nothing beyond peace of mind, and due to inadequate OEI practice (it's expensive!), many GA twin pilots have problems when one engine goes out. Pick a year and look at the Nall Report. No thank you. I'll stick with my Mooney and fly it morning, afternoon and night, into and over the Appalachians as desired to reach my destinations of choice.

P.S.--there is a distinction between being a Professional pilot (those are behaviors), and being paid to fly. Many GA pilots fly in a professional manner without ever receiving any financial compensation, even at night and over mountains or water.

[carusoam]

Interesting professional response...

Let's see if we can rattle the cage a little more.

GIV captain has 36 posts...and calls the engineer uneducated. Then doesn't share a name.

Hank has 3,000+ posts and wrote an eloquent response. We know him as Hank.

Must be too much stress in the GIV/Rocket world to be nice today.

Best regards,

-a-

Yes, some of my friends do call me 'A'

[MooneyPTG]

Personal minimums are what keep pilots alive. I am also not a night flyer. In a single engine 40 year old plane I don't see the point in flying at night. I am not making it wrong! Just Not enough options for Me if something doesn't go as planned.

[MooneyPTG]

Personal minimums are what keep pilots alive. I am also not a night flyer. In a single engine 40 year old plane I don't see the point in flying at night. I am not making it wrong! Just Not enough options for Me if something doesn't go as planned.

[Hank]

My plane is 44; the engine, GPS and VOR heads are ~11.

I'm involved in as much of my maintenance as possible, starting on a creeper the week after I bought half of her. Read the Owners Manual, flipped through the Service Manual, crawled around the airframe with a flashlight and screwdriver learning how it's all put together.

Knowing the condition, I have more confidence in the plane. Learning to fly in WV taught me about terrain even as my CFI taught me how to fly during the day and navigate at night. My C is wonderful for trips east of the Rockies, but it would take much study to go through them. Thus I stopped at Cody, WY.

[GIVCAPT]

Interesting professional response...

Let's see if we can rattle the cage a little more.

GIV captain has 36 posts...and calls the engineer uneducated. Then doesn't share a name.

Hank has 3,000+ posts and wrote an eloquent response. We know him as Hank.

Must be too much stress in the GIV/Rocket world to be nice today.

Best regards,

-a-

Yes, some of my friends do call me 'A'

No cage rattle here A _ _ _ _ _ _

 

life is good, and a person you post 36 times or 3000+ times means nothing to me.

[Jim Peace]

An engine has X% chance of failure on any given flight (the exact value does not matter). Two engines, each having X chance of failure, has a total of 2X chance of failure.

P.S.--there is a distinction between being a Professional pilot (those are behaviors), and being paid to fly. Many GA pilots fly in a professional manner without ever receiving any financial compensation, even at night and over mountains or water.

Having flown professionally for a while, I would rather be in an average maintained twin than a well maintained single.  At least the other engine will give me time, less rate of descent, to prepare for the worst.  And in most cases if loaded correctly, which is my call and it will be, I will make it to an airport, even if it takes many stops to final destination  Most of the light twin crashes are due to lack of proficiency on single engine ops and to much weight for that single engine to maintain level flight.  Think of how many moving parts are in an engine.  I don't care how well you think you are maintaining it.  You don't know what can come apart at those RPM's at any second.  

S H I T happens......

 

Respect the light twin and its safer than an F16.  Most GA flyers will not do that.  They are invincible.  They almost always fly at weights that will not allow it to be flown on one engine.  Just look at how many crash every week due to low visibility and clouds...or the thunderstorm that although forecasted they just could not accept it was there and pressed on....forecasted or not, doing a 180 or delaying the flight in most cases would save their lives.  Do they do that?  of course not, get homeitus or just not knowing what they don't know kills these people and their innocent passengers who thought they were great pilots because it was their father or brother and they spent all that money on a GTN....something or another.......

 

Regarding your PS,,,,Planning to fly a single at night over mountains is not even close to safe, therefore not professional.  We are not trying to pioneer aviation today, there are no heroes.  You put your life and your rescuers, CAP in singles, in danger.  Rescue may not even come until daylight.  How many hours will that take? Does it happen sometimes yes, but planning to do it is crazy.  These small planes whether or not maintained by a MSC, probably have an accident rate worse than motorcycles.  Why not just fly upside down at night in a snowstorm over Aspen with zero vis with the gust lock on and get it over with.

 

Have you read this thread with these accomplished professional guys?  How long did it take rescue to come?

http://mooneyspace.com/topic/12072-anyone-know-this-pilotac/#entry150861

 

Go to this page and show me all the light twins that crashed vs the singles this week:

http://www.asias.faa.gov/pls/apex/f?p=100:93:0::NO:::

[N201MKTurbo]

I have over 500 hours of night flight almost all of it out west. We have lots of mountains.

I think one of the most important things is to be familiar with the terrain you are flying over. Knowing where the mountains and valleys are at all times.

I tend to fly VFR most of the time, so I have to know what the terrain is around me. When you fly IFR you can ignore the terrain and just fly the featureless map thinking that everything below MEA will kill you.

That being said, wouldn't flying single engine IFR anywhere west of Kansas be just as dangerous?

The FAA, who makes everything illegal, still allows us to fly single engine IFR at night.

[schule]

Every flying/worthwhile life event has an element of danger....the key is identifying it and then trapping it with a set of well thought out back up plans. Operational Risk Management I believe it is called. Night flying definitely adds an element or two into the equation, but is not in itself a point of no return.

Several have mentioned their mitigating techniques, but just like daytime flying you cannot eliminate it. Night flying also reduces some of the risks associated with daytime flying. Unless someone is violating FARs it is much easier to see traffic, and there is less of it to hit in the big sky theory. The sleeping cow does create a unique risk.

At the end of the day risk is a personal choice unless you have passengers and that itself adds significantly to the ORM. An argument can be made that flying a Mooney at night over the mountains is safer than living in California, flying the Fighting Falcon, or flying your Mooney ROP.....or is it LOP, ah I can't remember which one is better maybe I will just compromise an fly at peak........; if you plan it well enough and have exit ramps available.

Fly safe is an attitude based on experiences of dumb decisions we lived through, experiences we lived through because of good prior planning with the proficiency to make it happen, and knowing when not to continue to press forward.

Fly safe ya'll.

[sleepingsquirrel]

 

........I think boats get a 2 mistake discount over airplane 'mistakes' before someone is seriously inconvenienced, like floating around in the gulf holding on to the ice chest overnight.

In airplanes, if things go perfectly wrong, even as few as one mistake can kill you.  Two mistakes will certainly be bad news, and with 3 or 4 mistakes, I think one would have to be lucky not to die.  Just as in boats, going out at night is 1'mistake', one strike against you.........  

 

I've always heard of the chain of events that cause an accident, but believe the probability of an accident  is more like a buffet. WE select from the buffet things that increase the likelihood of an accident,what it will be, and increase/decrease the severity of its outcome. Any one of these items based on a pilots experience could be enough, for some their plate requires two , three or more to get to the threshold. It looks like a chain after the accident because it's easy to trace in retrospect. 

 

 It's not necessarily the hardware store bolt that caused the crash but , that, and night IMC in turbulence and the off field landing with no elevator. 

[chrisk]

Personal minimums are what keep pilots alive. I am also not a night flyer. In a single engine 40 year old plane I don't see the point in flying at night. I am not making it wrong! Just Not enough options for Me if something doesn't go as planned.

 

Personal minimums don't have to be as strict as no night flight.  At night I want 2 hours of fuel in the plane when I land, mostly because I don't want the pressure to do something stupid.  I also tend to fly as high as reasonable.  At 12,000 to 16,000 feet, you have a reasonable chance of making it to an airport (provided you are not in the Rockies)  And I fly IFR.

 

I would also argue flying in clear skies during the day, but over IMC with low ceilings is more dangerous than night flight.   If the engine quits your blind until you pop out of the clouds at 300 feet agl.   At night with VFR conditions, at least you can see where airports are and if high enough, you have a chance of making one.

[bonal]

During the long summer days I don't fly at night because I have plenty of daylight to get in a full day and still have enough time to return home before dark. Now with the onset of winter I will be regaining my night proficiency and currency so I can return home after dark. Personally I love the beauty of night flight accept the increased risk and plan accordingly. As for the single vs twin argument it seems like the bigger the faster the more violent the accident and as long as there is no fire we have a good chance of survival in our Mooney's

That's just an observation no need to blast me on my lack of pro status. Hmmm think I'll head to the Sierras and do some upside down IMC practice just in case

[RobertE]

Just a quick question. Has anyone on this thread ever had to glide to an airport at night due to a failed engine? I don't think I could do it successfully. I'd arrive either with too much energy to dissipate with too little room to do so or with too little energy to stretch the glide.

[Browncbr1]

I'm new to this forum, so maybe my thoughts don't matter to some people on here. I think there are two schools of thought when it comes to flying, and I happen to agree with hank. I would rather glide a single than a twin. And that might be the case, as fuel exhaustion is a major cause of emergencies. There are certainly many more complexities involved in safely flying a twin.

Either way, I think the community benefits more from intelligent debate.

[Andy95W]

Hank,

 

I take it you're not a professional pilot and you don't make your living by flying,hence your uneducated and lack of knowledge response.

I keep looking for a "Dislike" button. Maybe we should get the administrator to add one.

[Andy95W]

No cage rattle here A _ _ _ _ _ _

 

life is good, and a person you post 36 times or 3000+ times means nothing to me.

Man, we really need a "Dislike This" button.

[Andy95W]

I'm new to this forum, so maybe my thoughts don't matter to some people on here. I think there are two schools of thought when it comes to flying, and I happen to agree with hank. I would rather glide a single than a twin. And that might be the case, as fuel exhaustion is a major cause of emergencies. There are certainly many more complexities involved in safely flying a twin.

Either way, I think the community benefits more from intelligent debate.

Your thoughts definitely matter, whether 4 posts or 4,000, because you made a good point and were respectful of others.