Piloting a hot air balloon in the inky darkness of night is not usually on the minds of most balloon pilots. "Why would you want to fly a balloon when you can't see either the sights or even worst where you may have to land?"

To answer the first part of that question watching the sunrise from a hot air balloon can be an awesome experience as most of us are aware. Launching a half hour before sunrise does not require a night rating and still gets you the thrill of a sunrise so this can't be the driving factor in getting a night rating. The sights while flying in a pitch black night sky are quite numerous and different than when you launch at dawn. Read on and you'll understand what I mean.

The second part of the question involves not being able to see the obstacles when coming in for an emergency landing not a standard run of the mill approach to land. Don't confuse the two as when your ready for your standard landing you'll have plenty of daylight even under a cloudy sky. Yes, you should take extra precautions to ensure that you're fully fueled and that your system is functioning properly. This is not the day to be trying out a new burner or new tanks. You should know your maximum flight duration for the conditions and plan accordingly.

In order to get your Hot Air Balloon Night Rating you need to log four hours of flying time in the darkness. Two hours with a Night Rated Instructor on board and two hours solo with the instructor witnessing the flight.

Night flights must be conducted with a lighting system as described in the CARS regulations. For those of you who receive the CBA Journal (newsletter) you may have read an article by Craig Westcott that describes how to build a night light system. It's truly as easy and cheap as Craig makes it out to be. Once I figured out that the sockets Craig recommends only work for the 2357 bulbs I was OK as the package of bulbs I purchased had two. The other bulbs (1176) don't actually work with the sockets recommended. In total it took me about an hour to construct the system and in total it cost about $28. The extra $8 was for a cigarette lighter adapter that I use to plug into my existing electrical system.

Prior to undertaking a night flight there are a few things that you should acquire other than the legal stuff. A BFL (Big F'n Light) will come in handy while setting up. This isn't a test to see if you can configure your equipment in the dark it's about getting up into the night sky as safely as you can. Get as much light as you can find. If you're launching with another balloon have his/her crew point the chase vehicle, with lights on of course, at your balloon and you do the same. This makes a big difference. If you can mount the BFL onto your basket/burner fame during flight it will help immensely. Get a head light. You know the ones that strap to your head like a headband. These are very handy both while setting up and while airborne. It keeps your hands free for other things like flying the balloon! It wouldn't hurt to let your local flight center know what you're up to. It could eliminate a lot of hassles if the public or other aircraft start reporting strange lights in the sky. Try to pick a launch spot that is removed from any houses. You're likely to be launching at some ridiculous time in the morning so try not to piss off the locals. Your crew will likely bear the brunt of your poor planning as you float away.

The following is an account of my first Night Rating Training Flight...

The Calgary Balloon Club organizes a night flight once a year around April Fools Day. This year the Sunday fell on April the second. Being that I was the balloon coordinator for April meant that I would be responsible for getting some balloons and crew out for this prestigious event. Past history has not been kind to this event. In fact I can't even remember the last time it got off the ground. This year would be different.

Dennis once again stepped up to the plate to oversee my first night rating training flight. We initially decided that a launch from the Military Museum on Crowchild Trail would give us a nice view of downtown as we floated out towards the city limits. After some discussion and having a closer look at the launch site it was decided that we would head out to the countryside. All of our city launch sites where simply too close to houses. We would hate to loose the privilege of flying from the Museum site as it's the only private property site we have. Even our Langdon Balloon Port was too close to houses so the decision was made to launch from Bill Lester's place. Bill has a nice field well out of ear shot of any neighbors and it's even closer to Calgary than Langdon.

I determined the meeting time at Keith's shop by working backwards from sunrise. Sunrise is 6:15, two hour flight means launch at 4:15. One hour to get out to the launch site and setup means we meet at 3:15 at Keith's shop. Heck, lets make it 3:30. It takes me a half hour to get to the shop and a half hour to wakeup this means a 2:30 alarm time. What an April Fool am I!

I was the first one to get to the shop and I had already unplugged the balloon and locked the trailer when Bert and Paul arrived. Shortly after Bert arrived my virgin crew members Miles and Nick showed up. "Yes, this is a very early start and no this is not the way it usually works!" I kept telling them, hoping they wouldn't get totally turned off to ballooning. Regular crew Kelly and Russ arrived next with Craig and his balloon shortly after. Amazingly, no shortage of crew today! Finally Dennis made his grand appearance and we were off to the races.

Bill Lesters place is just north of Glenmore Trail and east of the city limits so it didn't take us long to get out there. With Dennis on the phone with the Edmonton Area Controller we overshot Bill's place and had to turn the caravan around and back track to the launch field. It's not easy seeing all those hot houses in the dark. Once we found the launch field the equipment setup and inflation was standard issue except for trying to make sure that no one stepped on my light bulbs and installing the battery into the basket. Things were a little hard to see but with the help of my head light and Craig's truck light everything was getting connected to the right spots. It was about this time that people started appearing out of the dark. First Searle then Cat then Bill Lester. Great to see this many people out for a balloon flight!

Launch was smooth and controlled with Dennis and I getting off the ground first and Craig and his passenger shortly after. Once airborne and in stable flight the sensation hits you. Where am I? Am I going up or am I going down? What's my altitude? The experience is totally foreign to what you're used to. With no reference to the ground you have no sensation of vertical climb or descent. A very strange feeling for a balloon pilot. Once I overcame this sensation I began to concentrate on my instruments and fuel management. This is where the head light came in handy. Every time I checked a tank gauge or the instruments I could see without problems. Looking sideways at the instruments showed me what I would see without the head light. It was a huge difference.

It was at least an hour before we started to get a visual on ground features. It was a cloudy day and even once the sun was above the horizon we only had dull daylight. The flight was slow, I mean very slow. We took over two hours to fly about 8 kilometers with most of the flight taking place over Chestermere Lake. It probably took us 45 minutes to cross the short side of the lake going from SE to NW. Two hours later and finally across the TransCanada Highway we decided to come down and look for a place to land.

The surface winds where about the same speed as up high but the direction was straight out of the west. We came down and made a stand-up landing about 100 meters from the entrance to the field. Once the crew arrived I had them push me out to the entrance where I deflated the balloon. Once we had recovered the transponder antenna, which had somehow become dislodged from the antenna cable during landing, we celebrated the flight with Craig's crew and passenger. It was a great flight and I can't wait to finish the night rating requirements with another night flight soon. Maybe during a full moon in the winter with a new snowfall on the ground!

Stay tuned for Night Rating Flight #2…

Steve