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3 Answers

First night VFR flight

Asked by: 1350 views
General Aviation, Light Sport Aircraft, Weather

I originally was not a fan of the idea of night VFR but recently my brother (private pilot) filed a IFR incorrectly and departed and had to either land or continue with a night VFR. He did the night VFR and enjoyed it. He said that it was as nerve wracking as expected. So I recently did it last night and it was amazing. It was my first time so pretty much I watched the sunset and did a traffic pattern after than landing. Also got a good photo.

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3 Answers



  1. Skycatcher06 on Mar 18, 2022

    Can you add photos?

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  2. John D Collins on Mar 19, 2022

    Sunset can be beautiful, but night does not begin immediately at sunset. In most of the US, night begins roughly a half hour after sunset. The FAA defines night as being: 14 CFR 1.1 “Night” means the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the Air Almanac, converted to local time.

    Then there is the currency requirement that needs to be met in order to carry passengers which I term as “dark night” and is the period from an hour past sunset to an hour before sunrise. So if you land before FAA night, it can be up to a half hour past sunset and you would not log any night time. You can still land for another 29 minutes after the onset of FAA night with passengers aboard and not be afoul of the currency requirement of 61.57(b)(1).

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  3. Skycatcher06 on Mar 20, 2022

    John. There was no passengers and I guess it doesn’t count as a night flight because I just watched the sun set fully and beautifully then landed about 15 minutes later.

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