X-Virus-Scanned: clean according to Sophos on Logan.com Return-Path: Received: from [69.171.52.140] (account marv@lancaironline.net) by logan.com (CommuniGate Pro WebUser 5.0.4) with HTTP id 886455 for lml@lancaironline.net; Sat, 17 Dec 2005 17:38:24 -0500 From: "Marvin Kaye" Subject: Re: [LML] Night Flying To: lml X-Mailer: CommuniGate Pro WebUser v5.0.4 Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2005 17:38:24 -0500 Message-ID: In-Reply-To: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Posted for "Chuck Jensen" : Steve, You cite your training, experience and skill as though its protection against bad things happening to good people at night. Granted, those skills come in handy if you inadvertently fly into weather and you likely know enough to respect MEAs and on really dark nights you fly a full instrument approach while respecting altitude limits so a bump in the terra firma doesn't reach up and snatch you...which seems to be a big bugaboo for night flying. Given those factors, night time flying is really a mechanical risk. A few things I wouldn't do when flying at night, VFR or IFR; fly any experimental with less than 100 trouble free hours on it, fly anyone else's plane, fly any plane that had any intermittent mechanical problem, fly any plane that had any electrical issues of any sort, fly any plane that didn't have solid maintenance performed by solid mechanical-types. 'm sure others can add to the 'don't do' list but that's a start. We all know that the odds of a serious mechanical problem are low on any given flight, but at night, particularly over rough terrain, the consequences are so dire that we want everything tilted in our favor. I love flying at night, but I'm not enthused about flying at night over the mountains in a single...heck, I don't even like it over the mountains all that much during day VFR. Chuck Jensen Knoxville, TN 37931