Dark Acceleration

I like to fly at night. The air generally is smoother, theres less traffic, the ATC frequencies are not as busy and ground illumination, the moon and the stars can compete in one of the best light shows youll ever see. Of course, humans were never meant to fly in the first place, and we often have difficulty actually seeing things at night. So we need to be mindful of night flyings risks and adopt procedures or limitations mitigating them.

Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside

Sunday, June 02, 2019 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

SpaceShipTwo was released from the mothership at 51,000 feet. Courtesy Virgin Galactic

Key Takeaways:

Night flying presents significant risks due to the human eye's limitations in darkness and the unreliability of the vestibular system, making pilots highly susceptible to spatial disorientation.
Without external visual cues, pilots can experience dangerous illusions, such as the somatogravic illusion, where acceleration during takeoff is misperceived as a nose-up attitude, leading to an incorrect nose-down input.
Modern flight instruments are essential for maintaining aircraft attitude and orientation during night takeoffs, especially in dark conditions, and their proper use is critical to prevent accidents like the detailed King Air crash where the pilot failed to maintain terrain clearance.

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I like to fly at night. The air generally is smoother, there’s less traffic, the ATC frequencies are not as busy and ground illumination, the moon and the stars can compete in one of the best light shows you’ll ever see. Of course, humans were never meant to fly in the first place, and we often have difficulty actually seeing things at night. So we need to be mindful of night flying’s risks and adopt procedures or limitations mitigating them.

It helps to have a firm understanding of how human eyes (don’t) work at night and how the lack of visual cues can scramble our internal gyro instruments to the point we can’t tell which way is up. We especially need to remember that the acceleration of takeoff and initial climb can confuse our internal gyros, so we perceive the airplane is climbing when it’s really in level flight. Or descending.