While ceiling and visibility significantly affect safety in night VFR operations, lighting conditions also have a profound effect on safety. Even in conditions in which visibility and ceiling are determined to be visual meteorological conditions, the ability to discern unlit or low contrast objects and terrain at night may be compromised. The ability to discern these objects and terrain is referred to as the “seeing condition,” and is related to the amount of natural and man-made lighting available, and the contrast, reflectivity, and texture of surface terrain and obstruction features. In order to conduct operations safely, seeing conditions must be accounted for in the planning and execution of night VFR operations.
Night VFR seeing conditions can be described by identifying high lighting conditions and low lighting conditions.
High lighting conditions exist when one of two sets of conditions are present:
1. The sky cover is less than broken (less than 5⁄8 cloud cover), the time is between the local moon rise and moon set, and the lunar disk is at least 50 percent illuminated; or
2. The aircraft is operated over surface lighting that, at least, provides lighting of prominent obstacles, the identification of terrain features (shorelines, valleys, hills, mountains, slopes) and a horizontal reference by which the pilot may control the helicopter. For example, this surface lighting may be the result of:a. Extensive cultural lighting (manmade, such as a built-up area of a city),
b. Significant reflected cultural lighting (such as the illumination caused by the reflection of a major metropolitan area’s lighting reflecting off a cloud ceiling), or
c. Limited cultural lighting combined with a high level of natural reflectivity of celestial illumination, such as that provided by a surface covered by snow or a desert surface.
Low lighting conditions are those that do not meet the high lighting conditions requirements.Some areas may be considered a high lighting environment only in specific circumstances. For example, some surfaces, such as a forest with limited cultural lighting, normally have little reflectivity, requiring dependence on significant moonlight to achieve a high lighting condition. However, when that same forest is covered with snow, its reflectivity may support a high lighting condition based only on starlight. Similarly, a desolate area, with little cultural lighting, such as a desert, may have such inherent natural reflectivity that it may be considered a high lighting conditions area regardless of season, provided the cloud cover does not prevent starlight from being reflected from the surface. Other surfaces, such as areas of open water, may never have enough reflectivity or cultural lighting to ever be characterized as a high lighting area.
Through the accumulation of night flying experience in a particular area, the pilot develops the ability to determine, prior to departure, which areas can be considered supporting high or low lighting conditions. Without that pilot experience, low lighting considerations should be applied by pilots for both preflight planning and operations until high lighting conditions are observed or determined to be regularly available. Even if the aircraft is certified for day and night VFR conditions, night flight should only be conducted if adequate celestial illumination is assured during the entirety of the flight.
