Today was a day that I was really looking forward. Unfortunately, it did not start exactly well. We had scheduled two training sessions today: the first at 2:00pm and the second at 8:00pm. But I was really looking for the second flight because it would qualify as a night fight!

Unfortunately, during the entire morning I have witnessed the bad weather slowly building up. I knew that I might not be able to fly. I drove to Summit for the first session and there I've realized that the weather would not allow flying as we were under Marginal VFR. I was not too worry to miss the first flight but I was hoping that the sky would clear up for the evening session. I guess I was lucky because the weather did clear up and as I was driving towards the school, I could see the sun starting to go down and could read that the weather was going to be cooperative.

Preparing for the night flight: Preflight!

As usual, I have prepared the training with the corresponding lab and it is now time to preflight the plane. Michael has usually instructed me to go preflight after inquiring how I was doing. But this time he added a little detail: "Preflight as usual and we will see the specific after". Good! That I know how to do it! I then take all my gears that has just got a little larger with the inclusion of a voice recorder. I'm hoping to be able to catch the communication in the cockpit and add it to the video! After installing the audio and video recording in the plane, I'm performing the preflight inspection. I have my night light but there is enough natural lights so I was able to perform the inspection quickly. Michael came right as I was finishing and we did the extra checks for the night flight. It is actually pretty simple and consist in verifying the lights! The trick is that you have to perform the checks very quickly because the lights are running on the battery only and are consuming a lot of power. This means taking too much time and we might end up not having  enough power to start the engine!!! On the other hand, we can try to start the engine and then checks the lights but walking around a plane with the propellers running and no one at the command is not a smart thing to do! But it's good to keep in mind that it is still a possibility if we are really in a situation where we suspect the battery would not have enough power (like during cold temperatures).

Time to get ready for the take off

I was not expecting that we would do much on that day but in fact we did a little less than I thought. We stayed in the pattern when I thought we would go a little further away and land on other airports (maybe even the regional airport: XNA). Not big deal, I know we will have time to do more later and this means more landings and I do need more practice on landings anyway. Michael being a little sick, I think he didn't want to go to far... But before doing landings, we had to go practice some maneuvers and we can not do them around the airport. So Michael let me know we were going to the North Practice Area.

So we do not have to do too much preparation in the cockpit, I've made the usual checks and announcement and was ready to start back taxiing for taking off. Razorback approach, our ATC, just gave us the flight following and a squawk code so we were ready to take off. The wind was reported as calm (so less than 3 knots), it should be a nice easy flight! Back taxiing is now on going, then come the end of the runway and it is time to ask Michael about any extra procedure. Answer: "No! Just take off as usual!". Ok, I know how to do that and here we go: "Lights... Camera... Action!" and we are off running in the night on the runway! So far every is going well. Reaching our take off speed rapidly, I pull the yoke to get the nose up and start flying. The plane agreed with me, taking off and almost immediately I felt almost no vibration, no skewing, just a very steady climb. I watched my speed and realized that the speed is constant and there is no up and downs. Wow! That no wind conditions is nice! The plane does not need any correction and I can almost remove my hands from the yoke. Actually I did for a few seconds just to make sure that I was not putting pressure on it! The result was a steady climb in a perfectly smooth air! This was very nice to experience and reminded me how pleasant it is to actually fly in these conditions. I made immediately a comment to Michael about the smooth climb and ride and he mentioned that it is like that almost every night of course, if you are in the middle of a front, you might have some winds at night but for the most part, you do not have all the convective from the earth being beaten by the sun. As the ground below us was starting to cool down, the air stayed very calm. I can say that I have a new appreciation for night flying. If anything I should remember that when preparing cross country flights with passengers... I'm sure they would enjoy the smoother ride!

Is there some crazy maneuvers in my future?

Now that we are in the air, Michael is telling me to wear the foggles!?! I’m surprised! What would I need a view limiting device in the middle of the night? I guess for the same reason than during the day, except that the reference point to establish our position based on the light instead of the horizon. I know that we usually don’t get the foggles out unless we will do one of two things:

1. Go work on the navigation using only the instruments
2. Go practice advanced maneuvers (power off stall, power on stall, recovery from unusual attitudes)

I would like is 1. aka navigation but somehow I think I’m going to end up with 2. As Michael is giving me the foggles, he asked me to give him 45 knots. That I know what it means: getting down to 45 knots with full flaps has nothing to do with navigation procedure…

Here we go with more advanced maneuvers

Michael then asked me if I remember the procedure for recovery from unusual attitude. Actually, I know what I need to achieve overall but really having some issue remembering the detail of the procedure. So after some re-explanation, I’m ready to try it again. I still have the foggles so there is no way I can help myself by looking outside. I then start following the procedure to get into the unusual attitude. I have to close my eyes, put my chin against my chest and cross my arms around me …. aaand.. wait! Wait for what? Waiting for the instructor to be finished messing around with the plane. What he is trying to do is putting it in a position without you realizing how you got into that situation. Once he is done, you have a little laconic comment like: “You have the controls, recover the plane!”. What you hear at that point is: “Now that I’ve put a mess with the plane, can you fix it!? Oh and please, don’t shake me up too much!”

When I open my eyes, he indeed put a mess with the plane but he taught well, so I immediately look at the speed and realize that our speed is increasing! I’m idling the engine. That should take care of the speed increasing. Instantly I start looking at the next  instrument to take care. The inclination, the plane is banked on the right side. I put some left ailerons and re-establish the plane into a level position. Ok now on to the third element: altitude! We need to be straight so I’m starting to look at the position of the plane and reestablish it to a level position. I’m adjusting the throttle to maintain a straight and level position and a proper speed! Everything took less than 20 seconds.

But we will not stop there and Michael asked me to prepare for another exercise. It is starting like the recovery from unusual attitude: close your eyes, crossing arms but only one this time and keep the head up. Then the strange thing: put your right hand on left side of the yoke! What?! Yes! I need to cross my control. This is odd but why not! Then the instructions became a little too simple. I’m sure there is a trick somewhere!

Did you mess up my plane again?

Basically, it sounded like that: “Continue to fly straight and level!”. I knew that something was not right. I can feel that the plane is going more or less straight. I’ve tried to correct a little. Michael is then telling me to “climb”. Good! I’m pulling on the yoke a little and wait to see what is happening but with my eyes closed, I will have to “feel” it! While all this exercise is happening, I’m candid about what is going on. Basically, I have absolutely no clue what the plane is really doing. Are we climbing? Are we going down? Are we banked? I have no clue. And I’m letting Michael know about it.

A few second later, Michael ask me to get back on the control and to recover. And here, big surprise! The plane is going down at 120 knots! We are in the yellow zone and we are not really level anymore, we are banking a good 15 degrees right. As soon as I realize what is going on. I’m starting the recovery from unusual altitude.

The lesson is clear and has been hammered in the head of every single pilot many times over: “Do not trust your body to determine what is going on with the plane. Trust your instrument!”. The lesson is vivid and Michael adds a little information: “While you were flying straight and level, the plane went to a 30 degrees bank on the right and nose down 30 degrees!”. Needless to say that I had really no clue we were in such a bad position.

On with the other advanced maneuvers

The  recovery exercises being over, we moved to the next exercise: Stalls. Here, nothing too bad or too different from the previous times. Started with a couple of power off stalls then some power on stalls (I HATE these!). Then we concluded the advanced maneuvers with a series of steep turns. The interesting thing is that steep turns usually used the horizon to do them but this time, the horizon has disappeared! At night time, doing a full 360 turn in 20 seconds does not allow you to try to distinguish black ground with black skies!

Returning to the airport

Finally, after 30 minutes of advanced maneuvers, it is now time to come back to the airport and practice some landings... We were above the Rogers airport, I had just got the weather for the Bentonville airport and ready to come back. I called Razorback Approach to let them know that we had the airport in sight. This is marking the end of the supervision from Razorback who advise us to switch to advisory. But the day is not over and we are heading the airport not to go home but to practice some night landings.