A Night Flight to Remember

Flying a tired Cessna through a deep Florida night presented an unreasonable string of challenges. But it helped me overcome some major psychological hurdles.

Another aircraft climbing into the dusk as we wait for ‘aeronautical night’. © Steve Mansfield-Devine 1989.

By the time we’d finished the flight planning, dusk had fallen and we were edging into another of those dense Florida nights in which the atmosphere is thick enough to suffocate. There was just one light shining in the flight office — enough for me to find the phone and file our flight plan. I switched off the lamp on my way out. Everyone else had already gone home except for Dale, my instructor. He locked the office and we sat for a moment at a picnic table discussing what the evening held for us. As it turned out we had no idea.

Any achievement worth having involves challenges. Learning to fly is like trying to run where every pace involves leaping a hurdle. It’s an unremitting series of acquired techniques and knowledge tests that have to be tackled, internalised and turned into a natural reflex before moving on to the next.

And in 1989 I went to Florida to do it all in four weeks. It was a tough schedule, and there were times I despaired — times I thought I would never acquire the knack of flaring, stall recovery, soft field takeoffs and all the other skills that are necessary to…