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Tim:
Your night VFR flight sounds awe-inspiring.
However, as someone who wants to see all Ercoupers live to
a ripe old age and retain their licenses, I see many reasons
for you to have cancelled your contemplated flight and only
one reason to have continued. Now I know it's a sensitive
subject, second-guessing another pilot's judgement, but
there are just a number of things that bother me about
that flight:
1) Your GPS failed, due to a line cord problem and there was
no battery. It was night, and you were in one of the busiest
airspaces in the country. For that flight, I'd want not just a
panel-powered GPS, I'd want battery back-up. In fact no small
number of us who a serious GPS users actually have a smaller,
spare unit.
2) It was your first night cross-country in years.
3) You were leaving the immediate area, where changes in landmarks or
dark patches could cause confusion or even spatial disorientation.
4) You had no gyro instruments, making recovery from vertigo very
difficult.
5) You had to 'pray' that your wet compass was accurate enough. You
mean you rely on it when you didn't know? Anyone can swing a
compass, but it's hard to do it after takeoff.
6) You did induce a bit of spatial disorientation, and you were fortunate
in
the outcome
7) Your passenger was a non-pilot. He could as easily have been a CFI,
or another pilot (who brought his or her own hand-held GPS along).
Had
that been the case, both pilot and passenger would have had a better
odds
of getting home to their sweethearts that lovely Valentine's day.
Now I know that SoCal is lit up like a Christmas tree on a clear night,
and
that
it makes night look like day. I also know that the sea of orange
streetlights and
highways sometimes creates confusion and doubt.
And I also know that you probably have a rebuttal for each of the points
above.
But also know, that for as many people out here who would have said 'go'
there
are a few more who would have said 'not tonight.'
Nobody ever died from saying 'not tonight.'
Please be conservative and join us at many EOC meetings to come.
Blue skies,
Greg
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