night solo

I can understand the cautious nature not to allow students to solo at night. Initial solo or subsequent solos in the practice area may not be advised, but I see no harm to a student who has mastered the aircraft, is on the cross-country stage to make a flight at night.

I may be bias though, my long solo, cross-country was conducted in the evening after work one fall. I arrived at my destination as night set it. My return trip was entirely at night as I arrived ~ 11:30pm after spending time with my parents at dinner.

I would make sure the student is comfortable using flight following.
 
The FBO where I trained would not allow a pre-ppl student to solo at night. Crazy insurance companies....I guess.
 
JEP said:
The FBO where I trained would not allow a pre-ppl student to solo at night. Crazy insurance companies....I guess.
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Thats because there is no logical reason too. My CFI has a great story on a reason why its a bad idea.

The "safety" answer doesnt work for me. A good pilot never stops training, so night flying is something they can work on after their PPL and once they have more experiance. Doing something dangerous when not needed to be "safer" doesnt make sense and is dumb.
 
mtsu_av8er said:
I think there's a pretty logical reason - good training!

I used to solo students at night before my flight school disallowed it.



What's the dangerous part?
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Solo night flying is not training, If your not in the plane then they are not learning much at that level other than trying not to get killed.

There is a reason why night solo is required for the commercial ticket and not the Private.

There is a higher risk with low time pilots flying at night solo, period.
 
Champcar said:
Solo night flying is not training, If your not in the plane then they are not learning much at that level other than trying not to get killed.
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Are you serious? I *learned* a lot during my solo flights. I'm sorry you think solo'ing is nothing more than fighting to stay alive. I think that's completely inaccurate.

Champcar said:
There is a reason why night solo is required for the commercial ticket and not the Private.
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Yes, there is a reason, but I doubt it is because of the supposed danger involved. I believe it's because the FAA requires that commercial pilots be experienced to some degree. Would you want a commercial pilot who isn't comfortable flying at night?

What I'm trying to say is, the FAA listed that requirement in order to raise the bar for commercial pilots, not protect the training environment for private pilots.

Champcar said:
There is a higher risk with low time pilots flying at night solo, period.
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There's also a higher risk associated with flying over mountainous terrain, in congested airspace, or from narrow runways. Should we not allow student pilots to solo out of anywhere except 10,000x300' runways in the middle of the desert now, too?

Flying is all about managing risk. There is no reason solo night flying cannot be a properly managed risk!
 
Okay, for all of you sticking to the argument that there is little or no added danger at night, please explain why the FAA will not allow even a commercial pilot to carry passengers for hire at night without an instrument rating. Or, why most other contries require an instrument rating for night flying. Are the governments of all of these countries just being overly cautious?
 
flyguy said:
Okay, for all of you sticking to the argument that there is little or no added danger at night, please explain why the FAA will not allow even a commercial pilot to carry passengers for hire at night without an instrument rating. Or, why most other contries require an instrument rating for night flying. Are the governments of all of these countries just being overly cautious?
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I don't think anybody is saying there is no added danger at night. All we're saying is that with proper additional training and appropriate limitations, solo night flying can be performed safely. I'm arguing that with *proper training* a student pilot could solo at night. I'm trying to explain why blanket statements like, "Student pilots should never fly solo at night under any circumstances," don't make sense. It's not clear cut like that.

As for the commercial pilot's requirement to have an instrument rating before flying at night, you're comparing apples to oranges. Commercial pilots are held to a higher standard across the board. To even get the commercial certificate pilots need 250 hours TT, even if they're proficient in less...does that mean the FAA should set a minimum number of hours before solo'ing? I don't think it's appropriate to compare the circumstances surrounding a commercial pilot with those surrounding a student pilot.

And for most other countries who require an instrument rating to fly at night, there are two ways to look at it--my first answer is to say yes, they are too cautious. But on top of that, there are different circumstances in other countries--for instance, most of Canada is rural. Flying around Canada at night has the potential to be more disorienting than flying around a lot of the U.S. at night.

Say, while we're talking about various requirements and laws, I'd like to point something out again--the FAA allows students to be endorsed for night solo. If it's such an absolutely terrible idea under all circumstances, why does the FAA allow it?
 
Simple. Any instructor who is afraid to *properly train* and endorse a person to solo at night must have fears of night flying himself.

SOLO is TRAINING. Any instructor who believes that the only time training occurs is when he is in the cockpit has a bit of an ego problem, or did not experiment and learn during his/her solo training periods.

61.109(a) "...and 10 hours of solo flight training in the areas listed in 61.107(b)(1)". Taken literally, this would REQUIRE some night solo. End of story.
 
nosehair said:
Simple. Any instructor who is afraid to *properly train* and endorse a person to solo at night must have fears of night flying himself.

SOLO is TRAINING. Any instructor who believes that the only time training occurs is when he is in the cockpit has a bit of an ego problem, or did not experiment and learn during his/her solo training periods.

61.109(a) "...and 10 hours of solo flight training in the areas listed in 61.107(b)(1)". Taken literally, this would REQUIRE some night solo. End of story.
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Yeah ok, that doesn't require any night solo, end of that story.

Personaly I think some instructors have a ego problem by letting there students do such things. Why do something when there is not reason to? are you trying to prove something or show of to your instructing buds. Don't let one of your hazardous attitudes get one of your students.
 
Champcar said:
Personaly I think some instructors have a ego problem by letting there students do such things. Why do something when there is not reason to? are you trying to prove something or show of to your instructing buds. Don't let one of your hazardous attitudes get one of your students.
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Being comfortable with one's own judgement and abilities as an instructor is not a hazardous attitude. Are we going out and pushing people to solo at night, just for bragging rights? Come on. Give me a break. I'm saying if it makes things more convenient for the student, I'd be willing to give the training and endorsement. This has absolutely nothing to do with showing off to anyone.

"Why do something when there is not reason to?"

I think this question is getting to the root of the debate. It represents a general perspective a lot of pilots have when it comes to training. Some pilots aren't willing to step out of their comfort zone at all. They've been taught somewhere that activity XYZ is risky (might be true, might not), so they don't want to have anything to do with activity XYZ until they are absolutely forced to. That could apply to night flying, mountain flying, flying over top of an undercast, doing long (500+ mile) cross countries, spin training, etc.

I'm certainly not immune to it. You want to hear something funny? The first time I landed on grass was during my commercial checkride, to demo a soft field landing. And I was a little scared of it. I thought I might screw it up and dig the Arrow's nose into the sod. Through my previous training, it was a big no-no, mainly for insurance reasons, to operate off of anything that wasn't hard surfaced and at least 2500' long.

Was there any rational to my concern? None, whatsoever. It was an induced fear passed on to me by my previous instructors and flight school managers. I'm currently teaching off a grass runway and would be the first to tell students landing on a short grass runway is pretty much a non-event after doing it a few times. Heck...my students are surprised when they do their first landing on a "massive" 6000' paved runway!

You know, there's really no reason to do a lot of things in flying. But a lot of those unrequired activities are what make better pilots. There's no reason to let students go more than the bare minimum 50 miles out and 50 miles back on their solo cross countries. But what would that do to them if I limited my students to going no more than say, 60 miles, just because "there's no reason to" and I don't want the liability?

They'd probably get it in their head that flying more than 60 miles away is dangerous...risky...something they can't handle...they're just not ready yet...that's a big step....they really ought to get more training before going further away...

Heck no! When I endorse somebody to fly cross countries, I tell them I want them to do the first trip over the same route we've gone over together, but for trips after that, they can go wherever they want. It might cost them more, and take more time, to fly 150 miles out and 150 miles back, but if that's what they want to do, I'll let them. Because they're PIC, they've been trained on how to do it, and I want to build their confidence to actually be a pilot, not a little drone that only does what I tell them to do. I want to turn out proficient pilots who are capable of fully exercising the privileges they have...and if that means soloing at night, I'm ok with that.

But maybe that's just my hazardous attitude talking.
 
This discussion is weird. I must say one of my bigger pet peeves are CFIs that are so terrified of the "liability" to their licenses that they refuse to provide thorough flight training. These are usually the same kind of CFIs that see their students in terms of how many flight hours that student will net them and how many more of these students until he or she can apply to Skywest, or wherever instead of as future pilots that will have no "day only" restriction on their PPL ticket and will be flying out there if they want to.

If a student wanted to do some solos at night, for whatever reason, simply do more training flights at night to prepare them. Once they know what to expect and have landed a few times flying at night is not significently more dangerous than at day. That's what I think, anyway... but what the hell do I know?

By the way, I don't mean to imply anyone in this discussion is that kind of CFI. But I have seen one or two IRL.
 
jrh said:
I don't think it's appropriate to compare the circumstances surrounding a commercial pilot with those surrounding a student pilot.
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My comment was inspired by all the talk of how commercial applicants are required to solo at night so therefore it must be safe for a student pilot to do so. And my point is, if after 250 hours of total time, and being held to a higher standard, and having passed at least 2 checkrides, the FAA still won't allow a pilot to fly at night, there might be some basis for not allowing a student pilot do so. And by the way, I agree it is not black and white. And my previous posts will show that with the proper training it can be done safely, however I also agree that if it is not necessary it is not worth the risk. If you live in a place where its dark 20 hours a day, it may be necessary, but at the same time, most of that student's instruction will be at night, so that student will be more prepared. A student with only the minimum night time does not need to, and should not solo at night. Call me paranoid about liability if you will, but after investing tens of thousands of dollars on my training, not to mention over 3 years of my life, I'm not about to let my students do something that I was not comfortable doing until well into training for my instrument rating. I will however provide pleny of dual instruction, and they can gain the night experience that way.
 
flyguy said:
A student with only the minimum night time does not need to, and should not solo at night.
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Whoa! Maybe this was a misunderstanding all along. There's no way I'd let somebody solo with the bare minimum night training. We're in complete agreement there. But with a couple extra flights of touch and goes, emergency procedures, etc., at night (and of course demonstrating proficiency!), I still say it's doable.

As far as the "need" to solo at night...it's all relative. There's really no "need" to let somebody solo in more than 5 knots of wind on CAVU days. But my limitations are never that restrictive, because I think it defeats the purpose of soloing.

So with night flying, you see "need" as living in Alaska or something. I see "need" as..."You can't ever get off work until after sunset? But you want to fly more? Ok, here's what we should do...then I'll endorse you." It's two different ways of defining "need."

flyguy said:
Call me paranoid about liability if you will, but after investing tens of thousands of dollars on my training, not to mention over 3 years of my life, I'm not about to let my students do something that I was not comfortable doing until well into training for my instrument rating.
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And there you have it--the root of most instructors' fears is what they weren't comfortable with in their own training. I'm not saying you're a bad instructor at all...it's happened to me too, in other ways.

As I've mentioned before, I'm very comfortable with night flying. My first two flights after my private checkride were to take my parents sightseeing at night. I think I logged about 8 or 9 hours and a couple cross countries at night within a month after getting my license. Maybe it came naturally, maybe I had a better instructor for my night training...I don't know. Bottom line is, it wasn't that hard for me.

And that's why we'll have to agree to disagree. My whole perspective is different than yours. My personal experience has lead me to believe night flying isn't especially challenging, while yours has not. I doubt either of us could do much to convince the other one otherwise.

The nice thing is, in the whole scheme of things, this isn't that big of a deal. Some instructors let students solo at night, some don't. There are plenty of great instructors who *won't* let people solo at night, and plenty of lousy instructors who would. And it's a minor enough detail in training that I don't think the student would gain much or suffer much one way or the other.
 
Champcar said:
Why do something when there is not reason to? are you trying to prove something or show of to your instructing buds. Don't let one of your hazardous attitudes get one of your students.
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Then let's settle it. Don't fly at all!!! Most people fly for enjoyment not a career thus there is no reason to fly. Why waste thousands of dollars and your personal safety since its SO DANGEROUS, oooooohhh the boogie man is gonna getcha.

I fly at night because I like it, my students like it. I have nothing to prove to anyone. I know instructors that won't fly in actual yet they are CFII's. They are uncomfortable with their abilities plain and simple. Here's a question for you then. Should they teach instrument if they aren't comfortable with their own abilities? Further more, it's not required to fly in actual, so should you not expose students to it?

Blah, blah, blah......

I stand by my thoughts. I will expose my students to as much as they desire.
 
jrh said:
Being comfortable with one's own judgement and abilities as an instructor is not a hazardous attitude. Are we going out and pushing people to solo at night, just for bragging rights? Come on. Give me a break.

I think this question is getting to the root of the debate. It represents a general perspective a lot of pilots have when it comes to training. Some pilots aren't willing to step out of their comfort zone at all.

It was an induced fear passed on to me by my previous instructors and flight school managers.

You know, there's really no reason to do a lot of things in flying. But a lot of those unrequired activities are what make better pilots.

QUOTE]


Loud Applause

Fear and panic probably cause more accidents than anything else. The more comfortable and confident I can make a pilot, the more situations I can introduce them to, the better off they will be. My goal is to prevent them from making mistakes that I may have made over the years. Help them learn from my experance. I want to make BETTER PILOTS.
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