David Nichols

By davidnichols

Night VFR at Vodochody

After I finished my solo circuits for my VFR night qualification, I got in the back seat of OK-FLY, a Piper Archer III (PA-28-181) and took some pictures while my friend Al Waning took over the left seat. Al only had to do 3 circuits before his solo. The picture's not very good, because the camera on my phone takes sub-par pictures in low-light conditions. However you can see the runway lights clearly on short final for runway 28 at Vodochody airport (LKVO).

It was a beautiful night, excellent night VFR conditions with great visibility. There were a ton of pilots practicing night VFR (or simply doing a couple of circuits to maintain night currency). All the lights of Prague were spread out below us. Also we could clearly see the runway lights for runway 24 at Ruzyne - as well as the heavy commercial airliner traffic approaching for landing there. At one point while I was doing solo circuits, I thought a 737 was only 500 feet above me, crossing my flight path towards Ruzyne, however Vodochody tower informed me that they were 2 flight levels above.

At one point I was "number 6" for landing. Another pilot told me that once when he was flying at night there he was number 9.

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