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- The first question differentiates between the 2 different definitions of night. For the purposes of being able to fly around, “night” begins a the end of civil evening twilight. To carry passengers though, “night” begins 1 hr after sunset. There’s usually a discrepancy between the 2. Take the example of a pilot flying around Chicago around June 1, 2010. CET ends at 1953 local time, but the sunset for that day is at 1919 local, meaning “night” for the purposes of carrying passengers doesn’t begin until 2019. The other part of this question is the part about the “touch and gos.” Although the meaning of a “full-stop” for a helicopter isn’t something I meant to get into, the “touch and gos” don’t count for night currency. This pilot has about 26 minutes of night time that he can fly around for in this case. Got a different answer? Post it as a comment–I could be (or probably am) wrong!
- The second question tests the same knowledge as the first, just from a different perspective. As in the previous scenario, the pilot can log any time after the end of civil evening twilight as night time. For the purposes of carrying passengers though, the 3 full stop landings have to be made >1 hr after sunset. Depending on where the pilot lives, the difference between the 2 could be great enough that he could have logged a fair bit of night experience. Got a different answer? Post it as a comment–I could be (or probably am) wrong!