Airports In The Dark

Over the years, Ive flown in and out of a specific airport on numerous occasions, day and night. Its a well-equipped facility, featuring a tower and a local approach control, along with scheduled service, multiple gates, two full-service FBOs and three runways. The nearby attractions are interesting when I want to stop, the food choices are excellent and the airport is a great choice for conducting practice approaches. Theres only one problem: I cant find it at night.

Editorial Staff

Monday, October 23, 2017 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

The author consistently struggles to locate a specific, well-equipped airport at night, finding its beacon weak and its lighting blending into the surrounding industrial and rural landscape.
Contributing factors to this difficulty include the airport's weak beacon at its boundary, lack of bright surrounding city lights, and potentially the author's diminished night vision.
To mitigate these challenges, the author plans to exercise extra caution, utilize zoomed EFB views and loaded instrument approaches, and maintain a higher altitude until the correct runway is confirmed.

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Over the years, I’ve flown in and out of a specific airport on numerous occasions, day and night. It’s a well-equipped facility, featuring a tower and a local approach control, along with scheduled service, multiple gates, two full-service FBOs and three runways. The nearby attractions are interesting when I want to stop, the food choices are excellent and the airport is a great choice for conducting practice approaches. There’s only one problem: I can’t find it at night.

The first time I encountered this problem, I was flying a borrowed airplane, building time. I arrived from the south, and the runway in use required reversing direction. I was very close in on a visual approach before I spotted the airport’s relatively weak beacon and, as I complied with the controller’s vectors, I wound up on a high right downwind. As I flew parallel to the runway, I finally was able to spot it. I completed the right-hand pattern and touched down without further ado.