I have my PPL, although I haven’t sent off/been down to the CAA to get my license issued. However, I want to get my night rating, so I have two questions:
+ How late into Spring can I train for my night rating, or where can I find the tables for Official Night in the south of England?
+ Can I complete my night rating and then take all the paperwork for that to the CAA together and get it issued all together (in that lovely brown pouch) ?
+ I have flown at night once after meeting a strong head wind while coming back from a training flight with an instructor, and loved the views across London and how smooth it is to do a landing. Is the night course fun?
By: Fireflyuk - 4th March 2007 at 20:55
I meant to add that if you get your Night Qualification before you have to send off your PPL paperwork you will save yourself the £76 it costs to have the words ‘The privileges of this licence may be exercised at night’ added to your licence. 😮
By: Fireflyuk - 4th March 2007 at 20:39
I finally got around to completing my Night Qualification this year.
luigi_m_ you don’t say where you are based but a lot of airfields only seem to offer night flying on certain nights of the week and only then for a couple of hours. When I was looking for somewhere to do my cross country trip to we struggled a bit to find somewhere to go that was open and not waterlogged! We ended up going to Shoreham which was a good trip.
If you want to get your Night Qualification I would suggest that you start as soon as possible. My airfield stops night flying once the clocks go forward.
I really do love flying at night. 🙂
By: BlueRobin - 4th March 2007 at 16:04
By the way, if anyone knows of a FTO willing to do night flying after the clocks change on 25/26, let me know. I can start now, but there’s no guarantee of being able to finish.
By: BlueRobin - 4th March 2007 at 13:45
Hi,
I need to get my night qualification too!
Night flying is a factor of a) when night falls b) if there is someone in the tower/fire cover for airfield licencing purposes and c) if your instructor is willing to work late.
From October-March when UK time is not on daylight saving is perhaps the better period to mee the above criteria. Nights are longer, for the instructor is just working a few extra hours, likewise for smaller fields that are not 24 hour operation. However weather can be a larger problem, though cold clear nights do occur. In the case of smaller fields, they will prbably allocate one or two days a week for night flying – it can be pot luck as to getting flyable weather and a night flying night coinciding.
When night falls later i.e. after the clocks change over to BST, you would probably need to start hunting around those schools based on H24 fields. This can mean those schools offering commercial training so be prepared for slightly higher flying rates.
You can apply for both your PPL and NQ to be added at the same time. I believe this saves you a fee.
Entering a location into either http://fly.dsc.net, or www.weather.co.uk, then clicking the “Climate Statistics” link will get you local SS/SR times.
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March 4, 2007 at 1:29 pm