Training Tip: Down to the wire
What’s more thrilling than finding the field at night by activating the airport lights from the air? Answer: Not seeing the lights.
Pilot-controlled lighting is an ingenious system that always impresses new pilots. There’s a tendency for novices to conclude that the highest-intensity setting available is always best until experience teaches that a particular night’s weather or visibility conditions may suggest a different method.
As with any system, however, it’s not foolproof, as a Van's Aircraft RV–7 pilot discovered when attempting to activate airport lights on the common traffic advisory frequency while descending from 8,500 feet, 20 miles from the destination.
The airport lights “never came on,” the pilot said in an Aviation Safety Reporting System filing submitted after the two-seat homebuilt airplane’s propeller sliced through a power-line wire 150 feet above ground level.
Sparing you any suspense, we can report that the pilot went around, climbed to 1,000 feet agl, and after checking the controls, found the airport again and landed safely.
“The lights not coming on made the airport extremely difficult to find. There was no NOTAM indicating the lights were inoperative. This was certainly a contributing factor to the incident, but I never should have descended so low without the airport in sight,” the pilot wrote, conceding the possibility of having been “overly sure of my situational awareness.”
Even without a complete picture of that close call, you can ponder some useful questions. Had the pilot been to that airport previously at night? Many pilot-controlled lighting systems are activated on a common traffic advisory frequency, but there are exceptions that would explain the absence of a notam.
Altitude is your ally. If the airport lights aren’t coming on, what’s a reasonable floor for your descent? Consider that question before your next night flight.
Was 20 miles too far out to activate the lights? Aeronautical Information Manual Section 2-1-9 notes that the aircraft must be “relatively close to activate the system.”
What obstacles lie between you and the airport, and does the approach offer a vertical guidance system to keep you above them?
That’s essential information for any night flight, whether the lights come on or not.
Dan Namowitz
