Night VFR ?

[BAW9DV]

Hi All,

Nice to be back for this year's GAAR! Happy New Year to you all!

Can someone please just explain the relevent bits about Night VFR please? In the UK, VFR at night is not permitted. So any darkness hours flights would have to be under IFR - which is not a problem for me as I am "virtually" rated and the DC3 has the required instruments.

Searches on the Internet have not revealed any definitive answers to exactly what Night VFR is, certainly as far as Australia is concerned, so I wonder if some one would just indulge me and explain the pertinent bits?

Thanks for listening,

regards,

Lee

[Andrew Godden]

Lee,

In Australia, night VFR is permissable, but I don't want to get too technical. The reference In the Event Briefing (first page of the pdf / Word document) to "...all pilots are deemed to hold a command instrument rating or night VFR rating..." for the purposes of the event relates to this. In Oz we also have what's called Special VFR which allows for a departure clearance when VMC does not exist but provided the flight can be conducted clear of cloud and visibility is not less than 3000 metres.

OK, I got a little too carried away there with the detail.

I have been preparing a simplified VFR Guide which will be up on the web site later today (Oz time) and it has a link to an official guide put out by CASA (Oz aviation authority). Here's the link.

casa.gov.au/pilots/flitgde.htm

This shouldn't be a problem for the GAAR 2009 as there are two dawn (or just on dawn departures) and some late afternoon / dusk flights, but no real night flights.

[BAW9DV]

Andrew,

Thanks for the reply. That defines it better.

As I said in my other thread reply, night flying is not a problem for me. But where there are airfields that have no instrument approaches and no lighting of any sort (such as in Sector 1) there are difficulties in the hours of darkness.

But I'm in for the duration do we'll go for it!

Take care,


regards,

Lee