Night Circuits

I fancied a bit of night flying as the airfield is open nice and late and it has been over a year since the last time. So I booked the aircraft for Friday evening.

The weather leading up to it was poor. A front was going through with low cloud, rain and gusting winds, but the forecast showed the front well clear by the late afternoon, so I hoped the Met Office knew what they were talking about.

I rang the airfield at 15:00 and they advised that I book for circuits and put me through to the tower. The tower seemed surprised that I was planning on doing them that evening and asked if I had seen their TAF’s as they had earlier been forecasting 25G35. I said that I had, but that the weather now looked much better. They agreed that is was about 220/10, but that would be a full ten knot crosswind on 27. My (inspoken) reaction was frankly – big deal! A ten knot crosswind would make it a bit more fun that’s all. So I booked out and they said if I didn’t show, it would be no problem.

Anyway, I drove off at 15:45 and weather looked OK, with light winds and clouds easily at 2500 with the very odd one or two at 1000’ – fine for circuits.

I got the plane out and checked her over carefully and took my time, using a torch as the light was going. One of the flying schools had clearly given up for the night, but another school was warming up for some night training.

I started the plane up at about 16:50. I noted a fiar old mag drop on the left mag and thought ‘oh great – a plug has gone!’. But I decided to at least taxy for power checks as I might be able to ‘burn it off’ by running the engine lean for a bit. Sure enough, in the normal power checks, rough running on the left mags. So I leaned to mixture and ran the power and temperature up for 30 seconds, then tried again – hey presto, no problem now. Probably just some fouling by being run too rich.

The club aircraft got out ahead of me and was obviously off on a short cross-country and I had the circuit to myself as I lined up on 27 and started the take-off run. Yes, it was a bit different in the dark and I rotated a bit later than usual. However, the climbout was OK. I turned onto crosswind at 500’ and started to hear rain on airframe, so I climbed on cautiously read to drop the nose of the lights on the ground started to disappear, but up to 1000’ circuit height and no problem.

The first circuit was fine, if a bit wide. My approach was a bit low (a common mistake at night) so I powered up a bit a climbed to the correct approach path. My flare was a bit high (again a common mistake), but I had enough energy to ‘feel it down’ without stalling and dropping her in.

The second circuit was much better. More the normal shape and a better judged approach and landing.

The third and fourth circuits and landings were OK. The final one was going OK. I called on final and the tower replied ‘err report final – err no, clear to land, wind is…..’. I had to laugh, he was obviously so under-utilised and bored that I caught him off guard! He probably had the last laugh though as I rounded out late and barely had time to flare before I touched. It wasn’t hard at all, but it may have been a ‘three point landing’ – not a great idea in a nosewheel aircraft.

Only a quick five night circuits, but good fun nevertheless. Even my familiar Arrow felt different at night and I had to concentrate on what I was doing and looking at.

Next up must be some more IMC refresher training prior to my revalidation in December / January.