070610 Clouds at Night

What does it look like to fly into clouds at night? It can be difficult to see them - especially on hazy nights with a high overcast.

Flying home from Charlottesville tonight I had an opportunity to reflect on the difficulty of spotting clouds at night - especially in hazy conditions like we had around here tonight. While flying along level at 5000 feet scanning my instrument panel, I noticed the outside was "different". I turned on the landing light and was greeted by a wall of gray. I had flown into a cloud and hadn't seen it coming. I happened to be in an area with few ground lights, the horizon was obscured by haze and there was a high overcast blotting out starlight.

I was flying IFR, but VFR conditions prevailed below my altitude despite the haze. Something to keep in mind while flying VFR at night.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• aviation
• cessna
• skylane
• night
• flight
• ifr
• imc
• c182
• leesburg
• virginia
• clouds
• n2871r