I went flying last night. My currency was running out, you only get 90 days and I had been waiting for standard time to refresh so I didn't have to stay out so late. I was not much of a night flyer when I flew singles but I enjoy it in the twin. In the singles I waited for the perfect weather but now good weather is fine. The problem I had was that the weather has been terrible every evening I had time to fly, even before the time change.
Last night, it was quite nice, some high overcast, light winds and good visibility. I headed to the airport and prepped the plane. At night it seem like everything is too light or too dark. That was the theme last night. After preflight I dimmed the lights down and took my time getting ready to let my eyes adjust. Dimmable hangar lights are a great feature. In the hanagr you typically want more light until you don't.
I keep my cockpit lights and screens extremely dim. Once your eyes adjust everything is plenty bright inside and it preserves your outside vision. Departing Runway 14 is pretty easy, lots of lights and reference outside. I enjoyed the night for a while just flying around and enjoying the still air and sparkling lights and then headed to Saint Augustine for my landing practice. I joined a long final for 13 and had a really nice touchdown.
After stopping on the runway, I ran my departure checklist and powered up. I have discussed the departure before, it can be a bit of a black hole with few visual cues. The big display and synthetic vision are really nice to have and I tend to split my attention between looking outside and cross checking the instruments. On the left downwind I encountered a new challenge. The Gun Club just North of the runway must have put in new lights. I am all for the Gun Club, it's a good airport neighbor cause they don't tend to complain about the noise. Their lights which I assume are for trap, skeet or sporting clays, point right in your face and were surprisingly bright. I tried to avoid looking directly at them as I made my practice circuits.
Heading home I was asked to fly the left downwind to 14. This put me on the North side of the field and once again I found some offending lights. The golf course seemed to have turned up the lights on the driving range. Annoying but again I could look around it. Turning final the runway lights looked mighty bright. On short final I was pretty sure they were set to "11". You would think brighter is better but actually no. They were so bright it made it hard to see the runway surface and judge my touchdown. It all worked out but as I slowed and planned my exit the darn lights continued to be a pain.
At night I am very careful to follow the yellow lines. With the edge lights so bright they outshined the other airport signs, the taxi lights and even washed out the yellow line. Being very familiar with my home field I found the right line and carefully made my way off the runway. I asked tower and he said the previous pilot wanted it that bright and he couldn't please everyone.
I taxied in and shut down. I turned my lights back to bright to push the plane in and called it a night. I now have 89 days of currency left as I write this. Not sure what the instructors are teaching these days but I am thinking they have the screens way too bright in the cockpit if they need the runway lights on full to see them. As a side note, that LED beacon we got a while back is still awesome and made finding the airport a breeze. No more relying on local knowledge to pick it out though that did tell me exactly where to look for the beacon.
