Night moves

In the past the NVFR was not subject to any periodic flight checks and provided that the holder maintained currency no instructor input was required.

Now the regulations spell out that a NVFR holder will be subject to a biennial flight review in the same way that a day VFR biennial flight review is required.

The new requirement to have a biennial NVFR flight review has come about from the number of night flying accidents. A few of these have been caused by equipment failure. This writer has had three vac pumps fail over the years, one at night. A number of accidents have been caused by a NVFR pilot operating the aircraft into conditions whereby there has been no external visual clues, such as no lights on the ground, thus the flight is effectively an IFR flight.

Both fixed-wing and helicopters have been involved. The majority of these accidents have been fatal.

Some have involved pilots not having any formal or current night flying experience.

In recent times there has been the Cessna 210 at Roma, Queensland in March 2013 where the pilot, who had no NVFR experience, took off before first light away from the lights of the town. Another was the Cherokee 180 near Horsham, Victoria in August 2011. Again, a NVFR flight that effectively became an IFR flight. Weather played a part. In August 2011 a helicopter flew into the ground near Marree, SA on a NVFR flight that had no external visual features to fly with.

The night sky is so unforgiving.

The ground so hard.

It is patently obvious that an attitude of press-on-regardless to get to a destination has lead to a number of the NVFR accident investigations.

Those accidents made the ATSB and CASA look long and hard at the then NVFR regulations some years before the release of Part 61 and its NVFR flight review requirement.

It can be said that having a oneto- one NVFR flight review with an instructor or ATO can be more beneficial than all the printed safety advice that the ATSB and CASA put out.

The introduction of the NVFR flight review will not be without issues. There are flyers who useNVFR on a regular basis. Outback operators often require a pilot to hold a NVFR rating for operational use, such as getting back home after dropping customers off or getting to the charter people soon after first light. Those pilots will now have to find an ATO or current NVFR-rated instructor to conduct their NVFR flight review in order to maintain the rating. Reasonably easy on the coastal belt where flight schools and instructors are typically located but not so easy inland where there are markedly fewer NVFR-rated instructors. An instructor has to not only be current but also be available and willing to fly single engine at night. Some decline.

The NVFR rating is separate to the daytime VFR flight review. CASA has suggested that it may be possible to roll the two into the one but CASA requires notification for both flight reviews.

Like NVFR instruction the review will depend on several things. The weather, the availability of the ATO/instructor and the candidate, plus the aircraft being both available and airworthy to fly at night.

The NVFR requirements note that a check of the weather is vital for safe night flight.

A glitch with any of those elements and the flight is cancelled. Book another day you say? But the ATO/instructor has already lost a half day of flying for two days for the cancelled NVFR flight and is now asked to allocate more time for the review. Sometimes easier to say than do.

When the NVFR rating was introduced it was envisaged that it would be used to get home soon after last light or allow an early morning departure. Extended cross-country flights were not in the planning at that time. Since then auto pilots and GPS navigation have come into being, making the NVFR process much easier but not without risks. Not every aircraft has a working autopilot or GPS. This writer recalls sighting the logbook of a pilot who flew from William Creek to Melbourne in a single in the wee hours as a NVFR flight. Really? Given the lack of lights in some of those legs it could at best be called an IFR flight. ‘In God, GPS and the auto pilot I trust’ must have been the motto.

In summary the NVFR flight review will be yet another cost impost on GA pilots and instructors, but one that is harder to argue against.