Night Flying Completed!
Well, this is a little delayed, but it follows chronologically. August was a terrible month for flying in Ohio. (Well, at least for a student trying to finish the night flying requirements). Finally on August 22nd, the weather and my instructor's schedule aligned, and we set off to finish the remaining requirements. The goal was 1.4 hours of logged time and 7 full-stop landings.
Our scheduled track took us from I40 to ZZV. No problem navigating, I have driven to Zanesville about 500 times, so I knew the geography pretty well, even at night. Landing was no big deal, winds were almost non-existent and the air was as smooth as Dove chocolate. The inital problem started when the fuel gauges zeroed out about half-way down and the backlights on the gauges went dead. This recurring problem has been a little disconcerting, but we had both checked the tightness of the fuel caps prior to departure, so we kept on flying.
It turned out that ZZV was having a little electrical problem of their own. NO TAXIWAY LIGHTS! The runways lit up great, but it was really tough trying to find that taxiway turnoff at night. I guess ZZV probably has about 30-50 landings per day, almost none at night, so no one had complained. We stuck 2 landings at ZZV and headed east to CDI. The landing at CDI was no problem, a little land, turn-around-and-take-off on the opposite runway. We flew back to Coshocton and tested the Terrain Avoidance upgrade that had been installed on our Garmin G430. It showed the radio towers and the hills where they were supposed to be, so that was reassuring.
Back at I40, we hit an additional 4 landings and logged 1.7hrs so that I was now completed with my Night Flying requirements. Yee-Haa!
Our scheduled track took us from I40 to ZZV. No problem navigating, I have driven to Zanesville about 500 times, so I knew the geography pretty well, even at night. Landing was no big deal, winds were almost non-existent and the air was as smooth as Dove chocolate. The inital problem started when the fuel gauges zeroed out about half-way down and the backlights on the gauges went dead. This recurring problem has been a little disconcerting, but we had both checked the tightness of the fuel caps prior to departure, so we kept on flying.
It turned out that ZZV was having a little electrical problem of their own. NO TAXIWAY LIGHTS! The runways lit up great, but it was really tough trying to find that taxiway turnoff at night. I guess ZZV probably has about 30-50 landings per day, almost none at night, so no one had complained. We stuck 2 landings at ZZV and headed east to CDI. The landing at CDI was no problem, a little land, turn-around-and-take-off on the opposite runway. We flew back to Coshocton and tested the Terrain Avoidance upgrade that had been installed on our Garmin G430. It showed the radio towers and the hills where they were supposed to be, so that was reassuring.
Back at I40, we hit an additional 4 landings and logged 1.7hrs so that I was now completed with my Night Flying requirements. Yee-Haa!
posted by Delta Whiskey @ 9:35 PM
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