scottm
Newly Enlightened
I will see if setting up the A2 on the glareshield does anything worthwhile for nightime landings.
Yer beginning to scare me.
I will see if setting up the A2 on the glareshield does anything worthwhile for nightime landings.
Yer beginning to scare me.
It's a good point, and one I am going to explore. I (like most pilots) have tried several landings without a landing light (just using the REIL's or edge lighting), and it's not a huge deal. But, I need to up my night currency in the next week or so, and I will see if setting up the A2 on the glareshield does anything worthwhile for nightime landings. I do agree that if you need to use a hand to hold the light out of the window, the tradeoff doesn't make any sense. Thanks for your insight.
I guess I need to explain that the one time I used a Maglite when the landing light was out, I opened the window on the 172 and held the light out the window. Putting it up on top of the glareshield was not an option. This was a Valdosta, Georgia, the weather was calm, about 2AM, and in a 172, the approach speed was slow enough that it was about like shining a light out of a car window. In the end, it worked fine. Somebody flying somehting else might not do as well.
I apologize for continuing this detour, but perhaps it'll be clear why. The business of flying is far too unforgiving for much creativity. Pilots rely heavily on the experience of others. An inexperienced pilot is likely to stumble into this thread and keep your experience in mind, maybe try it some day when his landing light fails. Then an Accident Site Investigator like me will be puzzling over why the pilot's flashlight and left arm ended up so far from the wreckage. It's important to me that any pilot who reads this thread also reads that I think it's unlikely this can be done without crashing. Like my father and brother I have over 10,000 hours of military and airline flying, and I'm a mechanical engineer. I've flown a lot of different airplanes including the Cessna 172, I would not attempt to land any of them one-handed. Maybe a glider, but you still might need to work the speed brake while landing.
Scottm
Senior Pilot, USAF
ATP multi-engine land
Type rated: B-707, B-720, B-757, B-767
Back in the good old days--circa 1981 in Provo, Utah where I got my private-- I used to fly with a small sanyo white flashlight. It had two white bulbs one over the other, one was surrounded by a red filter, rechargeable Nicads. The bulbs were not very powerful at all, but it was sufficient to preflight the singles I used to fly and to do inside the cockpit chores using the red filter. I remember the light cost around $10, it was sold in the sporty pilots shop too. My instructor had one just like it.
My dad had one, a big one he got overseas, and he gave each of his sons the smaller version. That was sometime back in the 70s, it stopped holding a charge long ago. It had a rubber plug in the back that was used to change light bulbs, and the electrical wall plug rotated out on the bottom so you could stick the flashlight onto the wall outlet. I'm pretty sure it was designed for pilots. Thanks for the memory!
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