Cirrus's are know for being one step ahead of their competition, therefore Cirrus came up with the 'flying 2.0' slogan. I think this becomes most evident when you take the small GA plane and fly it at night where its sophisticated systems really stand out. In order to become a private pilot, the FAA requires one to fly a dual night 150 nautical mile cross country and complete 10 full stop night landings. Although this may not seem like all that much, flying at night is a transition and as my instructor put it during our taxi to the runway for my first night takeoff, "The airports a different place in the dark."
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| Cirrus SR20 at night with Cirrus Perspective avionics |
First thing first, preflight. Walking around the plane following the checklist is a simple task completed before every flight. When it's dark, however, and the only illumination is a flashlight, this becomes a bit tricky. But this was nothing I couldn't complete on my own. Next, taxi. Taxing at night requires one to follow the centerline using the forward facing landing light that illuminates only about 20 feet in front of the nose. Instead of seeing the grass off the edge of the taxiways, blue omnidirectional side lights illuminate the the path. Takeoff is not much different either, follow the centerline, watch your airspeed, and pull back. But once leaving the ground, the simularities end.
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| KHPN --> Hudson River --> 20N --> 1B1 |
The Cirrus has dimming settings which allow one to see the vibrant colors on the MFD and PFD without disrupting their night vision. It also has a built in reading light and a LED red strip to illuminate the panel. All lights during a night flight should be red or blue, colors that do not disturb ones eyes like white light does. Since this is still visual flight rules, pilots must be able to see outside because separation, navigation and approaches are flown visually. The flight was a cross country flight planned from Westchester (KHPN) to Kingston Ulster (20N) followed by Columbia County (1B1). All planning was done like any other cross country, with a flight plan determined through charting using multiple checkpoints along the route. Since it was night however, and I needed visible ground reference points, I chose to follow the Hudson river rather that fly directly. A river as large as the Hudson at night stands out because it is a big dark empty space lined with lighted edges of riverside towns.
My first stop, 20N, is a shoreline airport making it easy to locate. This is a uncontrolled field, and at night an airport must be visibly lighted. The way class E airports work at night is by using pilot controlled lighting systems. Basically they have a frequency (found in the A/FD) where pilots can tap their talk buttons creating clicks, and when these clicks are heard over the radio they activate the runway lights. It is a pretty reliable system that takes a little bit of getting used to from the pilots perspective. It really is a cool thing to watch an airport come to life with runway lights on your own cue, which was my favorite part of the night flight. Finding the airport is still a challenge. Although one is tempted to look for the runway lights, airports are found easiest by searching for their rotating beacons. Once spotted, you must keep an eye on the airport or else you'll lose sight of it. I thought I mastered entering patterns, but at night ones sense of depth is lost and I was way to close to the runway on my downing leg. Following the glideslope at 20N I was able to make up for my mistake and execute a landing. The cool thing I found about night landings is how just when you approach the runway, maybe 10 feet up, your landing light begins to illuminate the runway in front of you making it much more visible that it is on approach.
Next we flew to Columbia (1B1) which is an airport that neither has a glideslope indicator nor easy VFR route. I planned to locate my position by triangulating between two VOR's, and that way I'd find an approximate location on the chart. It is always necessary to know where you are because this way I am able to determine the approximate time to begin my decent for the airport and where to look for the airport. Columbia does not have a glideslope indicator for runway 03, making the approach difficult. I had to stay on a proper decent path completely visually; at night without being able to see treetops and hillsides, this became a bit stressful. I came over the runway a bit high but landed just fine.
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| Wing ice lights on Cirrus |
After cleaning up, we departed and headed back for Westchester. The landing at Westchester showed improvement over the previous two. One reoccurring problem I had while doing my first few night landings was that I tended to drift to the right of the centerline. It is not a problem I have had in recent daytime flights, so it is my eyes deceiving me allowing me to mistake centerline two feet to the right. All in all, it was a good flight and I began to gain confidence at night VFR flying. It is something I am not entirely comfortable with yet, but something I will practice more at. My instructor reptively made the point that one day I will be flying a date or my family to lunch or dinner and our return will be a VFR night flight, and I must be safe during this flight; which is more than just being legal for the night flight. Night flight requirements state that the PIC must have 3 full stop night landings within the past 90 days in order to fly legally at night; which means one does not need a lot of experience in order to stay current. The Cirrus is a step ahead of similar models since it is integrated with multiple featured that are utilized only during night flight, such as the wing ice lights seen in the picture.
I would like to welcome all the COPA members who have been brought to my blog and thank those who featured it. The best way to keep up to date with me is to follow me on my new twitter, so follow away! @Neil_Hershman
