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Posted
1 hour ago, DCarlton said:

What does it display if visual is selected?

I just checked the Garmin Trainer and there is no Visual Approach showing up for F69.

If there were the Visual option, it would give you both Vertical and Lateral guidance *LIKE* a real approach.  But it is unofficial and needs to be used in VMC conditions, and even at night it can be iffy.  But it will line you up with the runway and if there are no tall obstructions in the area, it will guide you right down to the threshold at an unfamiliar airport.

 

Posted

Looks like Dallas Airpark doesn’t have any lighting. Is that so? Is it a thing to land at an unlit airport at night?


Unfortunately it looks like @mike_elliottis going to get involved with this one. :(

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Posted
2 minutes ago, 201er said:

Looks like Dallas Airpark doesn’t have any lighting. Is that so? Is it a thing to land at an unlit airport at night?


Unfortunately it looks like @mike_elliottis going to get involved with this one. :(

One would hope not, but sadly seems some people try. Uber is a wonderful thing.

Posted

Addison is a 10 minute drive difference…

really a shame and, this pilot I believe knew the area - if it’s the same owner listed…

-Don

Posted
56 minutes ago, 201er said:

Looks like Dallas Airpark doesn’t have any lighting. Is that so? Is it a thing to land at an unlit airport at night?


Unfortunately it looks like @mike_elliottis going to get involved with this one. :(

Non standard lighting. I can see them some evenings driving by (not very bright ). It’s an airpark so homes with planes are there. 3000x30 with displaced thresholds. It is a challenge to land there as there are wires/building on the north and a fence on the south side (for 34). Hangers are just east of the runway. It’s a tight squeeze. Tons of business all around. 

-Don

Posted

One of the Garmin vfr data fields can show VSR (vertical speed required) to any airport in its database. I have it on all the time to familiarise different combinations of speeds, angles and configurations. Makes approaches way easier at night with no papi or other guidance.

Its one of the most useful things there is. I have it next to gps vertical speed and when the 2 match, I'm on a smooth descent to runway. Can also set it for descent to over the airfield/before the airfield.

Also it shows centrelines if available. So stick on the centreline with a 500fpm vertical required and it should put you on the ground.

In any case, its a tragic accident. 

Posted

I will engage the Bill Gilliland foundation once verification of the deceased is obtained and his surviving spouse contact info is secured. RIP, the link I was sent late last night was pretty gruesome.

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Posted

Before I was based at KCHD, I was at P19 (Stellar AirPark). It has an approach to runway 35. It is a GPS now it used to be a VOR off of TFD. It takes you to runway 35. The airport only had runway lights on the northern half of the runway. I flew that approach a few times for real at night. You line up with the runway lights and touch down where the house lights start 1/2 mile short of the runway lights. There is a freeway running along the southern edge of the airport now with street lights, so it is not as spooky as it used to be.

Posted
14 hours ago, kortopates said:


Lateral guidance to every runway in the database and many with vertical guidance when obstructions don’t disallow. Of course strictly a VFR aide to help to make a stabilized approach.


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I that any help on a 650 or do you need the 750?

Posted
33 minutes ago, 1980Mooney said:

Not sure why you consider it "negative".  My Mooney training including landing and take-offs, day and night, at the now closed Westheimer Air Park (5TA4 / O07) in southwest Houston.  The runway was 28 ft x 2,500 ft.  I don't recall anything but runway end identifier lights.  There were high voltage transmission lines parallel to the north.  Prevailing winds were always crosswind. 

We also trained to land there with the Mooney's landing light off.  That was good experience one night when my landing lights shorted out on a night flight to a Texas hill country airport.

http://www.airfields-freeman.com/tx/Airfields_TX_HoustonW.htm#westheimer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westheimer_Air_Park

Nothing wrong with landing light out training, nothing wrong with "some runway lights out" training but training to land on a runway with no lights just re-enforces the students belief that it can be done when in fact for all but the most dire of situations it can or should be done. It's like training to bust minimums. Do you train for that as well? (No wonder insurance rates are so high)

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Posted
1 hour ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

I’ve landed at night without a landing light before, because it burned out on the approach, but I can’t imagine landing at night without runway lights. Especially someplace like this.  It sounds like this pilot beat the old/bold pilot maxim to me.  RIP.  

Such sadness for those left behind with this tragic crash.  Fortunately no one else inured or killed.

Landing at night  with no runway lights.......................In the early 60's, both daytime and nighttime, I would fly into Meadowlark Airport, Huntington Beach {Orange County, CA] with my mentor, Joe Finnell, in his 1956 Cessna 170 [converted to nose wheel], N2497D.   No runway lights at Meadowlark at that time.  There were beginnings of housing tracts near the airport, but mostly open areas with minimal obstructions.  Joe used one street light, located just off the end of the runway as guidance to the runway.

Great memories as we would make night flights out of Van Nuys Airport, down over LAX, near Long Beach Airport and into Meadowlark.  No Class B or C airspace and no Special Use VFR corridors. 

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Posted
I that any help on a 650 or do you need the 750?

Both GTN’s and Probably more than just the GTN’s such as smaller footprint IFR navigators but not sure - (not a fan of those).
latest G1000’s too.

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Posted

My understanding is that the lateral and (if no obstacles are in the way) the vertical guidance is available on both the GTN 650 and the 750.

i have the 750 in my Mooney and like the function very much. The prerequisite is that the airport is in the database and that the runway threshold and the final track data are available in a certain format. This is the reason why the function is not available for some airports.

In addition, the databases  from Garmin and from Jeppesen are different. A good example is the River Ranch airport in Florida (2RR). With the Garmin database, I do not get any guidance for the extended centerline. With the Jeppesen database in the same GTN 750 navigator, it works fine.
 

 

Posted
30 minutes ago, Bunti said:

i have the 750 in my Mooney and like the function very much. The prerequisite is that the airport is in the database and that the runway threshold and the final track data are available in a certain format. This is the reason why the function is not available for some airports.

This is essentially my understanding as well.    My Avidyne IFD has visual approaches for most airports.  It's fun to use and can be very helpful.

Only Jeppesen databases are available with an IFD (oddly enough).  ;) 

Posted
1 hour ago, GeeBee said:

Nothing wrong with landing light out training, nothing wrong with "some runway lights out" training but training to land on a runway with no lights just re-enforces the students belief that it can be done when in fact for all but the most dire of situations it can or should be done. It's like training to bust minimums. Do you train for that as well? (No wonder insurance rates are so high)

I agree with @GeeBee that attempting to land at night with no runway lighting is a really bad idea.  A long time ago I regularly flew into KEZF in Virginia to visit my girlfriend.  On one flight the weather was closing down rapidly, I was low on fuel, and was not instrument rated.  I keyed the mic to turn on the PCL and nothing happened.  After repeating this several times with no effect, I decided that I "knew" where I was, and would line up with the runway approach end.  Suddenly the runway lights came on and I realized I would have hit a maintenance hangar on the heading I was holding.  I went around. After I landed and pulled off the runway a truck raced up, and a guy (the airport manager) with a gun pointed at me started screaming that the airport had been NOTAMed closed for night landings due to drug traffickers using it as a transfer point.  He had seen that I was about to crash into the hangar and turned the lights on.  I made a major mistake in failing to read the NOTAM, and then compounded it by attempting to land on a runway with no lighting in a rural area.  Never again.

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Posted

An account on FB is saying it was a stall-spin after turning downwind following a go-around.    They are also indicating there are lights, they're just not standard a bit sketchy.   It may not have been an approach issue.    It sounds like it could have been disorientation or a failure of some kind, basically unknown at this point.

Posted
2 hours ago, GeeBee said:

Nothing wrong with landing light out training, nothing wrong with "some runway lights out" training but training to land on a runway with no lights just re-enforces the students belief that it can be done when in fact for all but the most dire of situations it can or should be done. It's like training to bust minimums. Do you train for that as well? (No wonder insurance rates are so high)

Believe it or not on my IFR checkride, the examiner asked me to continue the ILS descent all the way to the touchdown.  It was easy to do with a firm but not jarring touchdown.  I later explained to him how the antenna pattern can be impacted and why it wasn't a good idea to follow below minimums and his response is it is better than not being able to do anything when you have no other options.

Posted
12 minutes ago, 201Mooniac said:

Believe it or not on my IFR checkride, the examiner asked me to continue the ILS descent all the way to the touchdown.  It was easy to do with a firm but not jarring touchdown.  I later explained to him how the antenna pattern can be impacted and why it wasn't a good idea to follow below minimums and his response is it is better than not being able to do anything when you have no other options.

Cliff Hodges?

Posted
18 minutes ago, GeeBee said:

Cliff Hodges?

I don't recall but that could be the signature in my logbook.  It was in April of 1995 in San jose.

Posted
9 minutes ago, 201Mooniac said:

I don't recall but that could be the signature in my logbook.  It was in April of 1995 in San jose.

Likely. He still owes me $6000. Also figures something stupid he would say.

  • Confused 1
Posted
2 hours ago, MooneyMitch said:

Such sadness for those left behind with this tragic crash.  Fortunately no one else inured or killed.

Landing at night  with no runway lights.......................In the early 60's, both daytime and nighttime, I would fly into Meadowlark Airport, Huntington Beach {Orange County, CA] with my mentor, Joe Finnell, in his 1956 Cessna 170 [converted to nose wheel], N2497D.   No runway lights at Meadowlark at that time.  There were beginnings of housing tracts near the airport, but mostly open areas with minimal obstructions.  Joe used one street light, located just off the end of the runway as guidance to the runway.

Great memories as we would make night flights out of Van Nuys Airport, down over LAX, near Long Beach Airport and into Meadowlark.  No Class B or C airspace and no Special Use VFR corridors. 

@MooneyMitch

I landed at Meadowlark back in the late '70s...as I recall it was around 1500'?  Decades later I worked with a guy who had flown out of there as a CFI; claimed he flew twins in and out of there:o

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Posted
3 hours ago, GeeBee said:

Nothing wrong with landing light out training, nothing wrong with "some runway lights out" training but training to land on a runway with no lights just re-enforces the students belief that it can be done when in fact for all but the most dire of situations it can or should be done. It's like training to bust minimums. Do you train for that as well? (No wonder insurance rates are so high)

It can be done and done safely.

What makes it safe is a full bright moon on a cloudless night, honestly on a night like that you can see fine, almost even see colors. We use to call the Field Grade night because those were the nights higher ranked Officers would fly their night currency flights.

However on a night with no or little moon or heavy overcast is a whole different animal, unless your really proficient at it, it’s unsafe and I doubt anyone in their 80’s has good night vision to begin with.

What helps tremendously for night flight is to fly with as little light in the cockpit that you can get away with, if your cockpit is dark your eyes will dark adapt rather well, you would be surprised how well you can see. We called unaided night flying “Night Hawking”. We practiced it because you never know when your night system could fail

However with modern glass cockpits it’s just not possible to fly with a dark cockpit and therefore you will never really dark adapt and you won’t be able to see well at night.

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