Seriously, who flies FL70 at night without being IR rated and IFR equipped?
I’m trying to remember how high I went on my night cross country on a student license, in a C152.
US is very different: NVFR is PPL or even student while being pure VFR, in Europe, NVFR even required an IR and was done under IFR untill SERA forced countries to change their ways of doing it
I have 40h night, 25h of them were in US bimbling and logged in 3 months and 15h in UK & France mostly late landings maybe 6 flights were actual night departures…
I would be surprised that you can fly practically fly NVFR in US on 1200 not talking to anyone at all and without flight plan with so much Echo airspace and Delta airports?
Ibra wrote:
Indeed it’s not a general ICAO/SERA requirement but some countries even mandate two ways comms in airspace and aerodromes
Certainly, but you made a general statement about NVFR requiring 8.33.
Ibra wrote:
in Europe, NVFR even required an IR and was done under IFR untill SERA forced countries to change their ways of doing it
Again, that was not true in general. Some countries did, some countries had a separate night VFR rating (just like EASA does now) and some countries banned night VFR altogether (or had severe restrictions like it was allowed only in the traffic circuit of particular airports and/or along particular routes).
would be surprised that you can fly practically fly NVFR in US on 1200 not talking to anyone at all and without flight plan with so much Echo airspace and Delta airports?
What about it would surprise you? In the US, night is no different than day and (obviously) Class E airspace requires no radio use and a Mode C transponder only when above 10,000 ft. Class D does require 720 channel radio use but does not require a transponder. Class C and Class B-related airspace require both plus ADS-B OUT, except for certain waivered situations, but exist only in a small fraction of the US airspace. Nothing changes at night.
Flight plans are not required in the US for any VFR flight, day or night, except when crossing international borders or TFRs. I haven’t filed a flight plan of any kind in the last 20 years regardless of day, night or class of airspace.
Ibra wrote:
Seriously, who flies FL70 at night without being IR rated and IFR equipped?
I did, before having an IR. I would, if the aircraft is not IFR equipped or there is another reason IFR is not convenient.
lionel wrote:
I did, before having an IR. I would, if the aircraft is not IFR equipped
No gyros? just map, wet compass and pneumatic airspeed indicator away from civilization 
Ibra wrote:
No gyros? just map, wet compass and pneumatic airspeed indicator away from civilization
I would typically have a GPS receiver and moving map even if the aircraft doesn’t. Plus yes, even flying VFR without moving map (the aircrafts I was flying during my PPL training didn’t have any… they had a Trimble GPS without moving map, and we didn’t fly with tablet / pocket computer either), I would have a tendency to cruise at FL75 or 85, choosing between the two by hemispherical rule. My instructors were a bit chuckling at that, but accepting that it was a perfectly valid way to fly.
lionel wrote:
I would typically have a GPS receiver and moving map even if the aircraft doesn’t. Plus yes, even flying VFR without moving map (the aircrafts I was flying during my PPL training didn’t have any…
I have done it in darkness above the layer and no gyros, even with GPS, ATC spotted I was not flying very well and he kept nagging wing level with vectors, possible to fly on moving map and compass but still feels like navigating inside a cloud in glider, while it’s possible without any instrumentation, I think having 8.33khz radio and transponder and current instrument practice helps a bit in those condition, at least in terms of state of mind and instrument scan !
Airborne_Again wrote:
Some countries did, some countries had a separate night VFR rating (just like EASA does now) and some countries banned night VFR altogether
Night VFR is not at all harmonised in EASAland. Remember, SERA says that night VFR is allowed only if the national authority specifically permits it, so, in effect several countries still ban it. I remember trying to find the Swedish rules :-) No AltMoC, no AIC, nothing even in Swedish AIP or the national transport agency’s page of aviation rules. I needed help from a native to find a regulation called TSFS-2020-59 which is Sweden’s national supplement to part-SERA. In other countries you have to search in other ways to find it; in Denmark it is slightly easier to find in a document called BL 7-100 (night VFR rules are in the Danish AIP also).
To plan for night VFR flying through several EU countries is simply not practically possible because, to my knowledge, no overall picture of the rules exists.
Back to the subject of 8.33 – thanks for input from A_A and others.
lionel wrote:
I did, before having an IR.
So did I. (Well, at FL75.)
