Srinath’s turn to fly today. I headed straight from work to the airport. Unfortunately we forgot to pack the GoPro so today’s video was shot on a handheld iPhone and we don’t have an audio feed.

We started with high air work – steep turns, slow flight, stall and recovery. Then we headed to Byron for some landings. By now it was inching closer to dusk and since this was a training flight with our instructor, we were not constrained by the night flying rules.

Speaking of night, there are three different definitions in the FAR for different purposes. FAR 1.1 defines night as the time from the end of evening civil twilight to the beginning of morning civil twilight as published in the air almanac, converted to local time. This is for logging night flying hours. FAR 61.57(b) defines night takeoff and landing experience required for PIC. Night in this context is defined as starting one hour after sunset and ending one hour before sunrise. Three takeoffs and landings to a full stop are required within the preceding 90 days to be current. Finally FAR 91.209 talks about turning on position lights from sunset to sunrise.

Here is how I remember the three regulations. First of all, civil twilight is when the sun is at or up to 6 degrees below the horizon. At most latitudes (except as you approach the poles), civil twilight lasts less than an hour. So there are three regulations and they apply to three points in time – sunset, twilight and one-hour-after-sunset. Just as we would in a car, we should turn on the lights as early as possible. Sunset is the earliest of the three times and it makes sense to turn on position lights at this time. As a pilot in command carrying passengers, you want to be proficient in night landings. It makes sense for the regulations to stipulate currency requirements in the worst case scenario (i.e.) when it is the darkest. This is one-hour-after-sunset among the three times. That leaves night logging for hours starting with the end of evening civil twilight and ending at the start of morning twilight (i.e.) when the sun is at least 6 degrees below the horizon.

After a few landings, Srinath flew back to Livermore for a night landing.