Another wicked night for night flying. Calm winds at the surface, however, at 3000′, we were grounding over 120KTs.
Tonights lesson was entirely under the hood, to finish up the necessary instrument time needed for the night rating. We intercepted a few VOR radials, and made our way over to Lindsay Airport.
About half way there, I said that this was too easy and to “partial panel” me. So my FI pulls out her instrument covers and pastes over the heading indicator and attitude indicator. Awesome… Nothing like flying by compass.
We “cheated” and turned on the GPS (hey, thats an instrument right?) and headed direct to CNF4. I took off the hood and proceeded to enter the circuit (overhead the field, then right downwind for 13). Thats when my FI said:
“Your flaps don’t work”, to which I replied:
“What else?”
“Oh and your panel/radio lights don’t work either” as she reaches over and turns off the switch.
“I suppose my flash lights’ batteries no longer work either?”
“Yup”.
Yay! A flapless landing, at night, with no landing light, or instruments at an airport that is used to demonstrate the “black hole” effect. I had to overshoot my first approach because I was way too high. I nailed the second one without any issues.
On the way back we were doing 75-80KTs.
Buttonvilles’ beacon is so weak that I usually end up seeing the runway lights first. Tonight was no exception, in fact, I never saw the flashing beacon at all. The landing was another one without flaps, lights, or instruments. I flared a little too high, but still landed on the mains, and made it to B1 taxiway (landing 15).
My FI got a nice chuckle when I called up ground for taxi instructions:
“OYR is on Bravo one, requesting taxi instructions to the main apron for tie-down and sleep”.
I must be on my second wind, because at almost 1am, I still can’t fall asleep.
Tomorrow is my first night solo flight. Just going to do 45-60 mins in the circuit. Sunday night, I have another solo booking… not sure where I’m going to go then. Forecast is calling for rain on Friday night (booo cold front!) so who knows.
One more dual flight under the hood will be needed. That is booked for the 28th (yeah, she’s busy with night ratings until then) and is going to be in the Piper Warrior. I’m hoping that I will be able to get all the solo hours in before then so that I can finish this month with my new shiny Night Rating.
The counter at the top left of the site, that outlines the number of hours flown, is now accurate.
Cool.
Pardon the dumb question, because I could probably Google an answer, but do you need to pass a checkride with Transport Canada to get the rating, or does your FI or TAL ‘certify’ you as night rated? Any written test?
Brian,
No dumb questions here!
There is no test. After you have completed the minimum hours needed by TC and if your FI feels you know what is needed to know for the rating, he/she will sign you off.