Night flight

So last night I scheduled a flight from KCCR to KMOD... weather was a little iffy, but I spoke to John on the phone and he said to come on over. I checked the METARs and while they reported overcast skies, the ceiling was between 3500ft and 5500ft along the way - more than high enough for my planned route.

I got there around 730PM. The entire place was locked, but John was in his office; he asked me a few questions and then we went out to the plane.

Boy, is night different than day!

In some ways it's easier - there is a lot less noise in the environment in terms of recognizing major features (like the runways). But in other ways, it's a lot more difficult, as I learned on my second landing attempt. My depth perception was completely off because the visual cues are different, and instead of landing properly, I literally planted the nosewheel on the ground first.

Ick.

The plane bumped and jumped but luckily my instincts held up, and I got the place down without any more drama. Then it was time to head off to Modesto.

I got the clearance, and started towards the hills north of Concord in order to follow hwy 4. I crosses the hills at about 2300ft, and almost immediately run into a fully formed cloud that came out of nowhere fast. Everything is white. I just did what the FAA calls dryly "VFR into IMC" - the number one killer of VFR pilots.

I mutter to John on the radio "I am not comfortable with this".

He says back "so what are you going to do about it?"

I say, while turning the yoke and watching my altitude, "turn back and abort".

He says "Great! that's exactly the lesson I wanted you to learn tonight".

I was miffed at first, but then realized he was completely right. This was an excellent experience. I certainly wouldn't try to brave a cloud again, not without an instrument rating. It was very disorienting to lose all visual clues like that. And the weather reports are great, but actual weather can be an entirely different thing. That cloud was well, well below the 3500ft in the report.

Doing a 180 while staying level was easy enough, and in about 30 seconds I emerged out of the cloud into the beautiful and clear sky above Concord. I did a few more full stop landings, and called it a night. I even had the controller change the intensity of the runway lights for me just so I could see them in different settings (which is important before I try to go to an uncontrolled airport at night).