Just thought I would write up an interesting experience I had flying from Junction City KS to Steamboat last night. I've crossed the Rockies at night before, but always had a moon. This time, I was just entering Colorado as the waning moon set behind some clouds, and the sky was super dark. I have a grt sport, 696, and foreflight, so I felt well equipped, but as I passed Fort Collins and hit the mountains, all ground references disappeared, and there is a lot of smoke from some wildfires, which caused a haze to form and dim the very few lights in the mountains.
I've flown some pretty high adrenaline missions before, mainly in combat, but this was up there. There was absolutely zero reference to a horizon, other than my grt, because it was so black/dark. The haze caused the few sporadic ground lights to look very similar to stars, and I cold have been upside down and known no difference. A few times I would look down at my iPad, look up, and be rolling into a 30 degree turn (working on some lateral autopilot issues, so couldnt use it). Only got spatially disoriented once, and that was no issue after staring at the grt for a few seconds.
Another issue I faced was that while I had my grt, 696, and iPad dimmed as low as they would go, there were still reflections on the bubble canopy that gave me false peripheral illusions and were somewhat distracting.
Needless to say, when I broke out of complete darkness and had steamboat in sight, I was quite relieved. I felt like I was flying solely by reference to instruments, albeit VFR, with very little room between me and the mountains. The steamboat runway seemed to come up really fast too and looked to be elevated, and I couldn't see anything around it until my landing light hit it on short final, but I landed with out issue. I'll be interested to see the airport in the daylight.
To top the night off, I parked next to another RV. Can't wait to make the return flight, hopefully in the daylight this time, and hopefully the 30kt headwind I had will still be there for the return as a tailwind.
Would I do that again? Maybe, depending on the circumstances. I have no reason not to trust my airplane or myself, as of yet. She's a trusty beast and gets me where i need to go. But it did get me thinking that a nice IFR platform may be in the cards as a next/supplemental plane.
I've flown some pretty high adrenaline missions before, mainly in combat, but this was up there. There was absolutely zero reference to a horizon, other than my grt, because it was so black/dark. The haze caused the few sporadic ground lights to look very similar to stars, and I cold have been upside down and known no difference. A few times I would look down at my iPad, look up, and be rolling into a 30 degree turn (working on some lateral autopilot issues, so couldnt use it). Only got spatially disoriented once, and that was no issue after staring at the grt for a few seconds.
Another issue I faced was that while I had my grt, 696, and iPad dimmed as low as they would go, there were still reflections on the bubble canopy that gave me false peripheral illusions and were somewhat distracting.
Needless to say, when I broke out of complete darkness and had steamboat in sight, I was quite relieved. I felt like I was flying solely by reference to instruments, albeit VFR, with very little room between me and the mountains. The steamboat runway seemed to come up really fast too and looked to be elevated, and I couldn't see anything around it until my landing light hit it on short final, but I landed with out issue. I'll be interested to see the airport in the daylight.
To top the night off, I parked next to another RV. Can't wait to make the return flight, hopefully in the daylight this time, and hopefully the 30kt headwind I had will still be there for the return as a tailwind.
Would I do that again? Maybe, depending on the circumstances. I have no reason not to trust my airplane or myself, as of yet. She's a trusty beast and gets me where i need to go. But it did get me thinking that a nice IFR platform may be in the cards as a next/supplemental plane.
