When I was a student pilot learning to fly in Fullerton, I gained a unique perspective.\u00a0 Work kept me busy during the daylight hours and during the winter it gets dark earlier.\u00a0 So, the majority of my flight training was at night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you review the requirements to obtain a private pilots license, you’ll recall it require three hours of night training.\u00a0 This is important because it teaches the student pilot to get a basic understanding of what the sky looks like without a horizon.\u00a0 As well, if you have any mountains in your area, like we do in California, they disappear at night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another challenge when flying at night is finding your airport.\u00a0 When I first started out, I was always searching for a well lit area for my destination.\u00a0 It took me a while to break that mental picture and start accepting that I should be looking for a dark area.\u00a0 Gaining that practice in a safe environment with my CFI gave me the confidence to fly at night safely.<\/p>\n
The beauty of flying over a lit up city is a reward for all that practice.\u00a0 Plus, you’ll also enjoy calmer winds.\u00a0 And finally, you get to beat the heat!\u00a0 We all know there’s limited ways to get cool when flying during the day in our trainers.\u00a0 Garrett always says we’re “low and slow”.\u00a0 I think we can agree we’re actually “low, slow and overheated!”\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are a few pitfalls to watch out for when flying at night.\u00a0 The first and most important to watch out for is spatial disorientation.\u00a0 When you lose a visual horizon this is a serious concern.\u00a0 Make sure you get training on how to handle this.\u00a0 The other big risk is engine trouble.\u00a0 During the day, you have a good visual of the ground and can pick a place to land.\u00a0 At night it all changes.\u00a0 So, be prepared and always be asking yourself, “Where would I go now?”\u00a0 Have a plan for the unexpected.<\/p>\n
Flying at night can bring beautiful scenery and calm winds.\u00a0 The busy skies tend to clear and the experience is out of this world.\u00a0 Watching sunsets and night skies were a great background to an unforgettable experience attaining my PPL.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I was a student pilot learning to fly in Fullerton, I gained a unique perspective.\u00a0 Work kept me busy during the daylight hours and during the winter it gets dark earlier.\u00a0 So, the majority of my flight training was at night.\u00a0 If you review the requirements to obtain a private pilots license, you’ll recall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[67,68,63,131,75],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1220"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.funoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1222,"href":"https:\/\/www.funoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions\/1222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1220"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}