First Night Flight -- i have seen the light, sorta...

Questions and comments about the PE Pilot Training Program
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Talan2000
Posts: 207
Joined: Mon Dec 15, 2014 8:59 pm
Location: McKinney, Texas, USA, Earth

First Night Flight -- i have seen the light, sorta...

Post by Talan2000 »

Hey All,

First night flight tonight (or in 20 years as PIC). I try to do the Focus Flights daily... even if I am late...So today it was KOXR - KRNM. Lots of fun (take THAT B transition (!))... A/P and GPS sure makes life easy. Relatively uneventful save for the landing and this is why I post...

I have Real Terra Haze installed and have really loved it. But tonight, using whatever the default setting is for RTH, I belatedly realized that I could NOT see the field! All the terror of the real world lost at night scenario crashed on me 3 nm from the field. My handoff from APP to Tower saw my altitude and pattern fall apart as I scanned outside the cockpit and could see nothing resembling any airport I ever flew to at night. I thought, "Is there pilot controlled lighting? How to I key the mic?" I had the beacon and continued around using it as a guide but that only got me 20-30 degrees of lineup. I stopped myself about 600 AGL and said "STOP" this approach - go around, CONFESS your situation, figure something out...I would have been hurting in the C-152 25 yrs ago but as I calmed down I realized - seriously I have a moving map GPS onboard even if I don't know how to call up and activate a GPS or ILS approach I can get close enough with that... Calm down...lets do this again...on my next orbit of the field I managed to barely make it out at about 500 agl and 3/4 mile.

Bad WX? Poor eyesight?? No -- this time RTH was trying to kill me! It made the airport lights incredibly dim on the setting it was on. I manipulated the sliders on the ground and did some fam flying offline...the lights were now so bright they burnt my retinas. Perfect :)

Todd

PS Shed a tear for me that my random and frustrating BRAKE LOCKUP issue keeps happening to me randomly on landing...brake/s locked on landing rollout. I skittered across A5 off 27 and was ...stuck again. :(
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What fear looks like at night..
What fear looks like at night..
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Keith Smith
Posts: 9939
Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2010 8:38 pm
Location: Pompton Plains, NJ
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Re: First Night Flight -- i have seen the light, sorta...

Post by Keith Smith »

Todd, if you push your ptt 5 times within 4 secs, that is a shortcut to toggle your pilotedge connection.
Talan2000
Posts: 207
Joined: Mon Dec 15, 2014 8:59 pm
Location: McKinney, Texas, USA, Earth

Re: First Night Flight -- i have seen the light, sorta...

Post by Talan2000 »

Keith

Good to know. I think you are alluding to me getting disconnected last night as I sat sadly on the taxiway with stuck brakes...I didn't key the mike at all. I figured pilot activated lights was a step beyond PE at the moment. So it was a weird random thing I guess . Another in a long line so far...still loads of fun
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