Clipperstorch wrote:
In Germany you need a flightplan for night flying
You need that in any EASA country which permits night VFR, unless you’re just doing circuit work. SERA.5005(c)(1)
Do the majority of EASA countries not allow night VFR? (Serious questions, I haven’t checked myself.)
I think the majority just allow it as it’s part of CPL training done before IR (do ATC allow visual night circuits would under IFR 
) and most helicopters operations at night are VFR
In some countries it is not permitted unless permission, Greece see ENR1.2
Even when NVFR is allowed in airspace or FIR/CAS (SERA and AIP ENR1.2 VFR with load of conditions flight plan, radio contact, clearance), the bottle neck is you have to look very hard to find an airport that accept NVFR: most AIP big airports in Southern Europe are “IFR only” after SS (not even SS+30) and non-AIP airports don’t usually allow NVFR
Do that many countries allow NVFR flying to non-AIP airports? (UK & France allow NVFR in private strips with DIY lights but my impression it’s only applicable to “night training season”)
A data point. When I did my FAA > CAA (UK) conversion many years ago going the 100 (or was it 150?) hour route, the NQ carried over, as it is part of the FAA PPL syllabus.
That said, I rarely used it in Europe for all the reasons mentioned above.
Ibra wrote:
the bottle neck is you have to look very hard to find an airport that accept NVFR: most AIP big airports in Southern Europe are “IFR only” after SS
Very weird if an airport with lights (as virtually all IFR airports have) in a country which allows night VFR in its airspace would not allow night VFR takeoff and landing!
I have legally logged night landings which were technically day landings – hours after sunset, but with a full moon.
I have legally logged one day landing which was technically a night landing. 25 minutes after sunset, at EGPE Inverness, rain, thick cloud, December.
Maoraigh wrote:
I have legally logged night landings which were technically day landings – hours after sunset, but with a full moon.
With the old Swedish rules (before SERA) it is possible that they should have been logged as day landings… “Night is taken to prevail when a prominent unlighted object at a distance of 8 km cannot be clearly seen due to lack of light.”
Very weird if an airport with lights (as virtually all IFR airports have) in a country which allows night VFR in its airspace would not allow night VFR takeoff and landing!
Unfortunately, exactly that is the case at the majority of Italian airline airports.
boscomantico wrote:
Unfortunately, exactly that is the case at the majority of Italian airline airports.
Is there a known rationale?
Airborne_Again wrote:
Is there a known rationale?
If I had to construct one: The final approach segment is typically in class D airspace. So technically separation between IFR and VFR traffic has to be done visually w/o support by radar.
Even during daylight it is difficult for a landing airliner to ensure separation from VFR traffic visually – at night this is practically impossible.
Of course it works on gazillions of airports outside Italy quite well – but in most cases due to the fact that practically ATC manages separation between IFR and (N)VFR although they are not obliged to do so in Class D.
Malibuflyer wrote:
in most cases due to the fact that practically ATC manages separation between IFR and (N)VFR although they are not obliged to do so in Class D
That is probably right, aerodrome approach/tower ATC in many places don’t have radars, only en-route sector ATC have them and aerodrome approach/tower would have to clear every single traffic out of the way, I got puzzled once in in Southern Europe when I asked for Radar Vectors to ILS at Night and they send me for procedural, silly me they don’t have radar, I should have guessed it when I heard “clearance limit” to some VOR from en-route ATC
In the other hand for VFR, procedural airports tend to require two way radio or identification for NVFR in Echo TMA (you can call that a clearance ) and also require clearance to fly their published NVFR departures/arrivals/routes in Echo and some ATC would apply procedural separation to IFR/NVFR in Delta…
Also legacy reasons, aerodromes had hard-coded times for VFR and IFR type of operations as well as night equipment in the AIP which may not reflect SERA/NCO but they do reflect their old rules
Of course, with TAS/TCAS all these rules on procedural flying goes to the rats !
