First Time for Everything

Today had a lot of firsts for me. First time flying at night, first time landing at night, first time flying in below freezing temperatures, and first time flying in snow.

First things first, preflighting the plane took a little longer than usual because you can barely see anything at night- and its unwise to use flashlights because you sacrifice a little night vision which is desirable for flying at night. Plus since it was so cold, we had to take a propane pre-heater to the engine to avoid any damage caused by a cold start.

Once we got the plane started, I got to learn how to use the variuos new types of lighting I've never used before. These include: The taxi light, which is a light that shines on the ground, the navigation lights, which shine green and red lights on the wing so that other aircraft can see which direction I'm moving in the air, and the strobe lights which are flashes of light every second.


We took off and flew out towards Tygart Lake. It was pretty awesome seeing everyone's Christmas lights. I was able to pick out the various towns such as Grafton and Phillipi by the clusters of lights. I practiced slow flight, stalls, and steep turns.

Then we decided to head in the general direction of Phillipi airport to the south. After a couple minutes, I spotted the flashing green and white light of the airports beacon. Once we got a little closer to the beacon, I tuned the radios to the CTAF of Phillipi airport and I clicked my mic seven times. All of the sudden, boom! Runway. By clicking my mic seven times I triggered the pilot-controlled lighting and activated the runway and other lighting systems. It was nice.

At one point, we could look out at the wing, and see the strobe lights reflecting off snow. It was actually snowing around us. It was kind of like Star Wars- with the snow flying past you really fast.

We then headed back to do some stop-and-go's at Clarksburg airport. Clarksburg's runway lighting does not consist of centerline lighting, so it looked like I was
diving into a long rectangular hole. Once I got close, the plane's landing light shined on the runway and I could tell when to flare. Unfortuneatly, I often didn't pull back far enough on touchdown which resulting in touching down on all three wheels instead of just the back two. My instructor informed me that this was because your depth perception is faulty at night.

It was a pretty awesome lesson. My next flight is another dual cross country, but at night. I might do this tomorrow night, because it looks like its going to snow all week.

I'm taking my Private Pilot Knowledge Exam tomorrow. I have studied hard for it and I definitely feel ready to take it.