Night Flying Currency And Training In Los Angeles

Night Currency And Night Training Are Two Different Rules

Night flying currency and night flight training are separate requirements that pilots routinely merge into one. The training is a one-time requirement you satisfy before your private pilot checkride under 14 CFR 61.109. The currency is a rolling 90-day requirement under 14 CFR 61.57(b) that applies for the rest of your flying life, and only when you carry passengers.

Getting the distinction right matters, because the consequences are different. Missing the training means you cannot take the checkride. Missing the currency means you can still fly at night — you simply cannot take anyone with you.

This page sets out both, plus the three separate definitions of night that operate simultaneously in the regulations, and what night flying actually looks like over the Los Angeles basin from Van Nuys Airport. We fly from 7900 Balboa Blvd, seven days a week from 9 AM to 9 PM, so night flying here is available almost every evening of the year.

Three Different Clocks Called Night

This is the part that trips up experienced pilots, not just students. Three regulations use three different definitions, and they do not start at the same time.

For logging night flight time, the governing definition is in 14 CFR 1.1: night means the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the Air Almanac, converted to local time. Civil twilight ends roughly half an hour after sunset in Los Angeles, varying through the year with the date and latitude.

For carrying passengers, 14 CFR 61.57(b) uses a different and later window: "the period beginning 1 hour after sunset and ending 1 hour before sunrise." Your night currency landings must be flown inside that period, not merely after civil twilight.

For aircraft lighting, 14 CFR 91.209 uses the earliest trigger of the three: during the period from sunset to sunrise, no person may operate an aircraft unless it has lighted position lights. The lights go on before either of the other two clocks has started.

The practical consequence in Los Angeles is a gap of roughly an hour between switching the lights on and being able to log a currency landing. Plan an evening flight that needs three full-stop night landings around the later clock, not the earlier one, or you will fly three circuits and count none of them.

The Training Requirement: 14 CFR 61.109

Every private pilot with an airplane single-engine rating has flown this, whether or not they remember the paragraph number. 14 CFR 61.109(a)(2) requires, as part of the 40 hours of flight time for the certificate, at least 3 hours of night flight training in a single-engine airplane that includes:

• One cross-country flight of over 100 nautical miles total distance.
• 10 takeoffs and 10 landings to a full stop, with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern, at an airport.

Read the details, because students lose flights to them. The cross-country is measured on total distance, not on the straight-line leg, and the threshold is "over 100", not 100 exactly. The ten landings must be to a full stop, so touch-and-goes do not count, and each one has to involve a flight in the traffic pattern rather than a series of taxi-backs. All ten may be flown at one airport.

Night operations also appears as an area of operation in its own right in 14 CFR 61.107(b)(1)(xi), which is the list of areas of operation on which a private pilot applicant must receive and log ground and flight training. Those two paragraphs together are the whole regulatory basis of night training for an airplane rating.

There is one exception and it is geographic: 14 CFR 61.110 allows a person who receives flight training in and resides in the State of Alaska not to comply with the night flight training requirements, with a "Night flying prohibited" limitation and a twelve-month window in which to complete the training. It is not a general opt-out, and it does not apply to anyone training at Van Nuys.

The Currency Requirement: 14 CFR 61.57(b)

Once you hold the certificate, the training requirement is done forever and a rolling one takes its place.

14 CFR 61.57(b)(1) says no person may act as pilot in command of an aircraft carrying persons during the period beginning 1 hour after sunset and ending 1 hour before sunrise unless, within the preceding 90 days, that person has made at least three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop during that same period, acting as sole manipulator of the flight controls, in an aircraft of the same category, class and type if a type rating is required.

Four things follow from that sentence and all four matter.

• It only bites when you carry people. The prohibition is on acting as pilot in command "of an aircraft carrying persons" at night. Flying alone at night with lapsed night currency is not prohibited by this paragraph — which is exactly how most pilots go and get current again.
• Full stop, every time. Unlike the day requirement in 61.57(a), touch-and-goes do not count. Three full-stop landings mean three taxi-backs or three trips around to a stop.
• Inside the window. Landings flown between sunset and one hour after sunset are loggable as night time under 14 CFR 1.1 once civil twilight has ended, but they do not satisfy 61.57(b).
• Same category, class and type. Three landings in a Warrior do nothing for your currency in a twin.

Two provisions make this easier than it looks. 14 CFR 61.57(b)(2) permits the takeoffs and landings in a full flight simulator approved for takeoffs and landings with the visual system adjusted to represent the night period, used under an approved course at a part 142 training center. And 14 CFR 61.57(e)(5) provides that paragraphs (a) and (b) do not apply to a person receiving flight training from an authorized instructor, provided the training is limited to meeting those paragraphs, the person meets all other requirements to act as pilot in command, and the instructor and the person receiving training are the sole occupants of the aircraft. That is the regulatory basis for the ordinary evening where a lapsed pilot and an instructor fly three circuits and the problem goes away.

Night currency lapsed before a trip? Three full-stop landings on a clear evening is usually a single session. Instruction is $110 per hour and a single-engine aircraft is $179 per hour. We schedule until 9 PM, seven days.

Call (818) 330-1318 Rates And Aircraft

What Night Flying Over Los Angeles Is Actually Like

Los Angeles at night is one of the great sights in American general aviation, and it is also a genuinely demanding environment. Both things are true at once, and the reason is the same: the basin is enormous, flat and brilliantly lit, and the terrain around it is not lit at all.

Van Nuys sits at about 800 feet of elevation on the western side of the San Fernando Valley, with a full-time tower, Class D airspace and two parallel runways running roughly north-south. At night the field is easy to find from a long way out — the Valley grid is a lattice of lit streets and the airport is a dark rectangle in the middle of it with a lit runway down the centre. The 405 and the 101 meet a few miles southeast of the field and the interchange is visible as a moving river of white and red that makes a better landmark than most published visual reporting points.

Immediately off the southern end of the runways is the Sepulveda Basin, which is a park and a flood control basin and, at night, a hole. It is the one genuinely unlit patch in an otherwise continuous carpet of light, and an approach to the south runway across it is a textbook black-hole approach — no visual texture below you, a bright horizon of city lights beyond the threshold, and a strong tendency to fly lower than you intend. The correct answer is the one you were taught: fly the glidepath indications and the instruments rather than the picture.

The terrain is the other half of it. North and northwest are the Santa Susana Mountains, west of them the Simi hills, east the San Gabriels, and south the Santa Monica Mountains standing as a black ridge between the lit Valley and the lit Westside. None of it is illuminated, so at night the rising ground does not announce itself — it simply appears as an absence of lights, and an absence of lights is exactly what an unlit ocean, an unlit basin and a cloud deck also look like. This is why night flying here rewards a pilot who plans minimum safe altitudes before departure rather than reading terrain from the windscreen.

Go south and west over the Santa Monica Mountains toward Malibu and the picture inverts. The coast is a hard line of light with absolute blackness beyond it, and past the shoreline there is no horizon at all on a hazy night. A coastal leg after dark is the most common place a Los Angeles pilot first understands why the private pilot syllabus includes three hours of instrument work under 14 CFR 61.109(a)(3).

The airspace does not soften after sunset. The Los Angeles Class B shelves sit over the Valley with the same floors they have at noon, and at night you cannot see the shelf — only the altimeter tells you where you are relative to it. Burbank's Class C is a few miles east. Our page on airspace classes explained covers the structure, and the traffic mix at KVNY, which includes business jets and news and medical helicopters well into the evening, is described on the Van Nuys Airport page.

Why Winter Is Night-Flying Season Here

The seasonal pattern is the single most useful local fact on this page.

In December and January the sun sets in Los Angeles before five in the afternoon. Because 61.57(b) starts counting an hour after sunset, night currency landings become available around six o'clock — which means a pilot with a normal job can leave the office, drive to Van Nuys, fly three full-stop landings and be home for dinner. The air is also at its best: cool, dense, usually clear behind a front, with the long visibility that makes the basin look the way the photographs suggest.

In June the same exercise starts after ten at night, which is outside our 9 PM schedule and a much longer day. And late spring brings the marine layer, which behaves differently after dark than it does in the morning. The coastal stratus that burns off inland by mid-morning in May and June pushes back in during the evening, and it can move over the western Valley faster than a pilot planning a two-hour local flight expects. Our weather and cancellation policy sets out what happens when a flight stands down — the short version is that you do not pay for a flight we cancel.

The practical advice is straightforward: do your night training and your night currency between October and March if you have the choice, and if you must fly a June evening, check the coastal observations rather than only the field.

What It Costs

Night flying is billed at the same published rates as daytime flying. A single-engine aircraft is $179 per hour, the Diamond DA20-C1 is $229 per hour, the Cirrus SR20, SR22 and SR22T are $479 per hour, an instructor is $110 per hour and ground instruction is $110 per hour. Rates are set out in full on aircraft rental at Van Nuys, and what a rental operator checks before releasing an aircraft is on aircraft rental.

If your night currency has lapsed, check the rest of the list at the same time. A flight review under 14 CFR 61.56 is required every 24 calendar months regardless of how current you are — see our page on the flight review and BFR — and if you hold an instrument rating, six calendar months of inactivity puts you into the territory covered on the instrument proficiency check. If you are still working toward the certificate, the night hours are part of the private pilot course, which starts at $10,400, and the knowledge side of it is covered on ground school in Los Angeles. Stepping up to a retractable or a high-performance single needs its own signature, covered on complex and high-performance endorsements.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Are The Night Currency Requirements?

Under 14 CFR 61.57(b), to carry passengers between one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise you must have made at least three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop within the preceding 90 days, during that same period, as sole manipulator of the controls, in an aircraft of the same category, class and type.

Can I Fly At Night If My Night Currency Has Lapsed?

Yes, alone. 14 CFR 61.57(b) prohibits acting as pilot in command of an aircraft carrying persons at night without the three full-stop landings. It does not prohibit flying by yourself, which is how most pilots regain currency. 14 CFR 61.57(e)(5) also allows the landings to be flown with an authorized instructor when the two of you are the sole occupants.

Do Touch-And-Goes Count For Night Currency?

No. 14 CFR 61.57(b)(1) requires three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop. That is a deliberate difference from the day requirement in 61.57(a), which does not specify a full stop except for tailwheel airplanes.

How Much Night Flying Is Required For A Private Pilot Certificate?

14 CFR 61.109(a)(2) requires at least 3 hours of night flight training in a single-engine airplane, including one cross-country flight of over 100 nautical miles total distance and 10 takeoffs and 10 landings to a full stop, with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern, at an airport.

When Does Night Officially Begin?

It depends on what you are doing. Position lights are required from sunset under 14 CFR 91.209. Night flight time is logged from the end of evening civil twilight under the definition in 14 CFR 1.1. Night currency landings only count from one hour after sunset under 14 CFR 61.57(b).

Is There A Night Rating?

Not in the United States. Night flying is built into private pilot training itself through 14 CFR 61.109(a)(2) and the night operations area of operation in 61.107(b)(1)(xi), so there is no separate certificate or rating to add. What exists afterwards is the rolling 90-day currency requirement for carrying passengers.

What Is The Best Time Of Year For Night Flying In Los Angeles?

Between October and March. The sun sets before five in December and January, so the 61.57(b) window opens around six in the evening, and the winter air is cool, dense and usually clear. In June the same window does not open until after ten at night, and late spring evenings can bring the marine layer back in from the coast.

Book A Night Flight At Van Nuys

Instruction is $110 per hour and a single-engine aircraft is $179 per hour. We schedule until 9 PM seven days a week, which in winter is several hours of usable night. Call and tell us whether you need currency landings, the private pilot night requirement, or simply to see the basin after dark.

Call (818) 330-1318 Book A Free Consultation Book A Discovery Flight — $229

Not a pilot yet? A 60-minute discovery flight is $229, flown from the left seat with an instructor beside you and logged as dual instruction. No tax, no booking fee — $229 is the total.

You Fly LA · 7900 Balboa Blvd, Van Nuys, CA 91406 · Van Nuys Airport (KVNY) · Open 9 AM – 9 PM, seven days.