Night Currency




My former boss (he took a different position in the same company) and I decided to get night currency back. Neither of us had flown at night since our initial training, and we decided to do it again.

We went up with Donn, our instructor. I flew first, mostly because I'd gotten to the airport first and pre-flighted the airplane. We went towards Lincoln airport, which is lit at night and fairly close. Flying at night is really cool, you can see a lot more than you'd think you could. And it's all lit up. We got up there and got into the pattern and did a few landings. They were ok, but I tended to go a little slowly.

There was another guy in the pattern, practicing as well. I did four landings. I only needed to do three, but wanted to end on a better one than my third one. Donn says that at night, you don't make landings, you make arrivals. :-) So I arrived for the fourth time, and pulled off the runway so Jeff could take over. The other guy in the pattern said "Oh, I guess I'm losing my flying buddy" and left.

It was just as well, he kept turning the lights on the runway up all the way, then Donn would turn them back down. They don't really need to be that bright, and if they're all the way up, they're almost blinding. But the other guy liked it like that, I guess.

Jeff took over, and did three or four landings, then we headed back to Mather watching the moon rise. And Mars was out pretty brightly, too. It's really nice at night. So now we're current, and the plan is to go up every other month at night to stay current. We'll see if we actually do that.


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