Night Flight

The airplane waits with a patient heart, a dark gull on the ramp, wings collecting starlight. There is a kind of ceremony to approaching one’s aircraft at night:  circling with torch in hand, pausing before touching cold metal, with quiet breaths that fog in the cool air. I run my hand along the leading edge and feel the cold, aluminium aerofoil, its indescribable dings attesting to the metallic bird’s history, the rivets laid out like beads of a rosary. The Piper Warrior’s spinner is a dull moon under the hangar light, and the upper propeller blade points up against an ink sky. In daylight I would call her by her registration; at night she is simply “the aircraft,” and I am simply its “pilot,” two living entities, one formed of warm flesh, the other forged of cold metal, preparing to keep each other honest.

Fuel first. The caps resist, then yield with the faintest sigh. Blue liquid rocks gently in the tanks, two small seas captured in desolate wells. I dip the stick and count the inches by feel more than sight. Sumps tick with clean, cold avgas. The oil is amber under the beam, between min and max—the sweet spot where engines run like old friends telling stories they won’t admit to in daylight. Tires are as they should be: round, quiet, and faintly dusty. I palm the exhaust and come away with a black soot on pink skin. It will be under my nails by morning, a line I will not fully scrub away, a reminder that flight is a contract with fire.

On the wing-step I pause. The ramp smells like cut grass and fuel; somewhere beyond the fence a dog barks twice and forgets the reason why. Athens lies off to the south like a thought half-remembered, its glow a low dome beyond the hills. The sky above is untroubled and clear, stars strung with irrational precision, and the moon is a wafer-thin coin entangled in pale whiffs of silver-edged cloud. Corfu is west-northwest and two hours away at this airplane’s pace. At night, two hours is an honest distance: far enough to become someone else by the time you land, close enough that you can still recognize who you were when you rotated, becoming unstuck from the ground.

Inside, the panel comes alive like an orchestra woken gently: battery on, the soft thump of the gyro spinning to sharp attention, the quiet whir of the attitude indicator settling into its blue-and-brown truth. Avionics stack shows its little constellations. I twist the dimmers to a question-mark glow. Red floods, then I back it down until the needles are almost shy. Beacon clicks and throws its ruby heartbeat across the ramp. The ‘Warrior’ remembers her own age in the way the plastic creaks when I settle into the left seat and buckle up.

“Fuel pump on.” I state this aloud to honour the ritual. “Mixture rich. Throttle cracked.” Magnetos to both. Two priming strokes, a half-breath of hesitation, and then out of the small, swivelling window: “Clear prop!”

The Lycoming wakes from its slumber with sudden protest only to choose, quickly, cooperation: a cough that descends into a steady basso growl, a shifting at idle as if settling its shoulders after a long period of inactivity. The prop smears the night into a platinum ring. Gauges rise according to an old promise. Oil pressure is the first friend to arrive at the gathering, then temperature joins later, slower, unflustered. I breathe and feel the low-frequency hum in my ribs and down my spine. I have yet to determine how this vibration, which would annoy me in any other place, is comfort here in the cockpit.

Taxiing is a slow tai chi form; the nosewheel sighs over painted lines, the edges of the world reduced to what falls inside the cone of the taxi light. The aircraft is hardly eager. She takes instruction the way a cat takes affection: willingly, so long as you pretend it’s her idea. Run-up holds nothing dramatic—mag checks give their tidy 75-RPM drop, carb heat breathes warm and honest into the throat, suction holds steady, alternator needle speks in the affirmative. The air is dark velvet; the wind is sleeping. Megara Tower gives a good-night’s blessing and a code. I set the transponder to ALT and watch the four numbers hold like small prayers.

Departure is simple in theory and subtle in practice. At night the runway has a different gravity. The edge lights stake out a lane into the unknown, and the centreline is a dotted promise that I follow because that is the covenant between ground and machine. I align on the numbers and inhale sharply. “Landing light on. Fuel pump on. Mixture rich. Instruments in the green. Time noted.” I slide the throttle forward with slow precision. The ‘Warrior’ leans back like a runner on the first stride, the sound broadening in intensity, and we propel towards the triangle of converging lights. The airframe gives several tiny shrugs and then the wings earn their keep. Rotate, airborne into the liquid darkness, and climb out at seventy-nine knots. The runway falls away as if it decided it has important business elsewhere, and the city’s glow turns into a diffused memory. The blackness descends to meet us, like a blanket roughly strewn across the airframe.

At one thousand feet I nudge the nose down to keep the engine calm. Flaps are already tucked away—this airplane is tidy by habit. I turn on course, west-northwest, and the airplane obliges with a fraction of rudder, a fingertip of aileron. The magnetic compass in its little fluid universe drifts, catches, drifts again. The GPS line is a quiet promise on the glass, but I’m looking outside. Night VFR is a vow to look and not pretend you can see through what you cannot; it is a promise to trust the dark with your life while always honouring its limits.

I level at six thousand five hundred, the even-plus-five an old habit for westbound under a sky without weather. The ‘Warrior’ settles into her cruise like a horse easing into a lope. I set power for 2400 RPM, lean the mixture to a gentle rise and fall of EGT, and then a quarter turn back to kindness. Fuel pump off. The hum sharpens into a clean note. The panel is a small galaxy, each instrument a quiet star with a job to do. Outside, the endless galaxy of night does its work with more flourish.

Megara slides behind to the right in a dimming arc. Ahead, the great dark of the Gulf of Corinth rests like a forgotten page in a book. Tonight, the Rio–Antirrio Bridge will be a necklace of lights against an empty table. The land here is not a flat thing; it heaps and crumples into mountains that are more a feeling in the aviator’s soul than three dimensional objects in the invisible black. I hold the airplane a good margin above the highest doubts. I think about the first time I flew at night, how the fear was not of the dark but of myself in the dark. The aircraft only ever tells the truth; it is the ‘liveware’; errors betrayed by flesh and blood, that become an unreliable narrator. Over time, night makes an honest witness of the human element.

Radio murmurs in the headsets: other airplanes, other lives sharing a few seconds of the same frequency. A late business jet on climb-out, voice clipped like a well-tailored suit. A coastal helicopter turning back to base with the tired warmth of a shift ending. I speak my position in a voice that tries to sound like that of a veteran Speed-bird captain. Instead, it sounds just ordinary, which is probably better.

Lights string along the shore in small constellations, fishing boats hovering on blackened waters as if pinned to them. Once in a while I catch the beam of a lighthouse sweeping slow and indifferent, and I tip a wing to no one in particular, as a habit of thanks. The aircraft’s shadow cannot exist here, and the thought makes me smile. At night, we are weightless before our very eyes.

Instrument scan: attitude indicator dozing with its miniature horizon, altimeter’s tiny hand pointing to a fraction of a world, airspeed creeping a breath here and there with small temperature changes, tach steady at its number like a heartbeat learned by years. It is entirely possible to love a gauge. Not romantically, but with the sort of fraternal affection felt for an old friend whose phone doesn’t always work but who has never once lied to you.

The bridge arrives as something imagined at first and then, undeniably real: four bright blue pylons crested in red strobe lights, striding across liquid darkness. I reduce power a hair to hold my altitude in a slight downdraft that sneaks off the invisible shoulder of land. The ‘Warrior’ answers without drama. My aircraft and I cross high above the span, and I look down at headlights running like single beads of thought, each car a tiny purpose in transit. Over to the left, the Peloponnese falls away as the coastline kinks and glides north, and the silver Ionian Sea beyond is a coin tipped on its side.

I switch tanks. Left to right, right to left, on a rhythm I can justify to any examiner and to myself at three in the morning. A small change in trim, a small scribble in the log, marked by the red light on my kneeboard. I smell mountain tea and remember the thermos; the first sip is hot enough to surprise, the second perfect. A lone thunderhead far to the north over Central Greece flares silently with someone else’s storm. The stars are unfazed.

Flying over black water is an education in faith. The aircraft commands, “Hold this attitude and this power and you will continue to fly.” The sea gives no reply at all. Far below, there is a texture in the darkness whenever a wave breaks, or a boat moves—a faint travel of silver along the undulating expanse of ashen black. Far away to the west, islands reveal themselves by their perimeter lamps, the way shy hosts announce a party by leaving a door open and a light in the hall. First Lefkada, and then further north the grey suggestion of Paxous; the names arrive in my head before the shapes find my eyes. At night your chart is inside your mind first, then under your hand second.

I run the checklist for nothing in particular, an old superstition against complacency: “Mixture set. Power set. Engine gauges green. Fuel quantity balanced. Fuel pump as required: - off. Landing light off. Pitot heat off. Altitude six thousand five hundred. Heading three-zero-two. Radios set.” There is a ritual calm in naming things and finding them as you’ve stated.

Solitude here is not loneliness; it is a companion with a good ear. I murmur a silent prayer to the angels. I admit to my aircraft that I am an optimist and drive away stray thoughts of concern, and the airplane hums in reply, as if to say those two oxymorons are not enemies. The ‘Warrior’ does not care about any particular philosophy. She will simply reward awareness and punish clumsiness, and impartially, every time.

There is also the small matter of fear. Fear isn’t the enemy; it’s the glance at the altimeter that keeps me from wandering into a mountain, the double-check of the fuel selector before crossing wide water. Fear is the friend who asks inconvenient questions. The enemy is pride that tells you those questions are beneath you. Night takes pride by the elbow and walks it to the door.

Somewhere abeam Preveza the air changes its mind and becomes utterly smooth, a glass laid on top of the glass below. The prop seems to carve soundless slices from the stars. It is here that I can finally let my thoughts stray momentarily to the work of the day, the people I love, unreturned calls that could become unreturned habits. I make a small plan to do better tomorrow and reflect in the dark heavens that tomorrow is a runway I have not yet earned the right to occupy. Only this minute is mine. In it, I trim the airplane so perfectly that I can take my hands away and watch, for a full twenty seconds, the nose neither rise nor fall. Twenty seconds is an eternity in which a person can focus on a single light on a distant island and decide to call a friend in the morning.

Corfu is a name that smells of cypress and salt, a place that keeps a lagoon where the runway floats like a silver idea. Before it, the sea; behind it, hills with their own thoughts. I’ve landed there in day, when tourists run to the fence and point as if this airplane and I are more wonderful than we deserve to be. At night there’s only the quiet benediction of the PAPI lights and a few fishermen who don’t even bother to look up.

I gather the weather, because gathering weather is a way to gather the mind. The ATIS is a patient voice that does not know it is speaking to me, wind with a handful of knots from the north, visibility perfect, a temperature that will not trouble lift, QNH that I set and reset for superstition and accuracy. There’s an enchantment in the click and tiny turn of the Kollsman window; each twist is a choice of what altitude means. I brief myself out loud, because quiet words are more binding than thoughts: “Runway three-five likely, left-hand circuit if traffic dictates. Expect a black-hole effect over water, hold glidepath by PAPI and instruments. Touchdown midpoint, gentle braking. Fuel pump on for landing, mixture full rich, carb heat as required. No heroics. If it doesn’t feel right, just go around.” There is a relief in reminding myself that go-arounds are free.

Descent is always a small grief made useful. I pull the power and feel the airplane let go of some future it was creating and accept a different one. The prop sound loosens into an easy burr. The nose drops a careful degree and a half. I lean forward, as if interest could improve lift, lights expanding from tiny puzzles into places. The islands become not just islands but villages. A ferry carves a bright stitch across the waters. I call and report, feel good about the confident tone of my voice.

The last minutes before the circuit are the clearest of the flight. Everything unnecessary falls away. I level at two thousand five hundred to skim above the coastal hills, and the shoreline keeps me honest, curving me toward the final. The lagoon holds its breath. I think of all the times I have landed a single-engine piston aircraft and how each is always the first time.

On long final, I turn the fuel pump on; mixture set full rich, pushed forward like a generous thought. Carb heat adds a whisper of warmth to the chamber. I slow the aircraft, and flaps are lowered to their first stop, then second. The ‘Warrior’ burbles with the joy of becoming a small bird. The runway aligns itself with the nose and the PAPI shows two whites, two reds, a perfect impartiality that no human being has ever achieved in argument. I keep my eyes mostly on the path because the water underneath is a deceiver—black with not enough clues, pulling you low by the bribe of how lovely you would look reflected in it.

Short final and I remember to breathe again. Flaps moved to third position and the bird slows against the darkness. Airspeed holds—eighty down to seventy, a simple arithmetic. I remind my hands that they are not conductors for drama; they are translators for intention. A small crosswind slides me a step sideways and I correct without hurry. The plane talks with tiny pressures, and I answer in the same language. The last fifty feet are the truest words we speak to each other all night.

Flare, then a whisper of a wait, and the centreline lights expand toward the wingtips like a grin. The main wheels touch cold tarmac with mild protest. The nosewheel de-rotates, accepting its share of gravity a heartbeat later. I bring the throttle back to idle like setting a sleeping child down. Brakes are a suggestion, not a command. “Welcome to Corfu,” says a voice that might be mine, might be the ‘Warrior’s’.

Taxying to the apron is the past tense of flight. I clean up the aircraft as I move because that is what tidy pilots do: flaps up, carb heat off, fuel pump off, landing light off, strobes remain to say we are still here and moving. The runway recedes in the mirror of memory, and the lagoon forgets us instantly, as it should. The air smells of brine and soil that never quite dries. I follow instructions and paint lines into the corners with my tire marks. The marshaller is a lone figure in a yellow vest, an island within a smaller island, rolling his wrists in an unambiguous slow-down, then a ritual cross of batons to which I apply brakes and then set the parking brake. I shut down with the mixture, the engine leaning through its last breaths into silence. The prop stops with one blade posed skyward, a thought unfinished.

The stillness after an engine stops is not a normal quiet; it is silence that has learned what sound means and chooses to hold it. The gyro spins down with a brave little whine whilst the panel’s lights blink themselves sane. Somewhere a night bird laughs for reasons unknown. I scribble the time on my kneeboard, ink glowing brown under my red hand-torch. I crack open the door, and night ingresses in a single cool ribbon. It smells of pine and sea and a touch of fuel, which is to say it smells like the world I love.

I secure the airplane with a gentleness that would embarrass me if anyone were watching. Belts crossed neatly, control lock in, chocks set. I run my palm along the cowl in thanks and come away with the same thin ash line. In daylight I might wipe it off. Tonight, I’ll keep it. The ‘Warrior’ has done as asked without complaint, and I have done as taught without cleverness, and that is as good as life could ever be in my book.

Walking away, I glance back only once. The Piper Warrior is a dark shape now, all potential and no motion, like a sentence waiting for its verb. Somewhere beyond the perimeter lights, the sea makes the same slow persuasion it has always made to the shore. Somewhere overhead, a star passes across a bit of sky and winks its brief secret. In the morning, the island will be green again, taking on the safe three-dimensional hues of daylight.

So, the question hangs up there in the starry firmament… why fly at night? There is no simple answer. Perhaps, because the laws of physics feel somehow more gracious when wrapped in dark velvet. Or it is because the world offers less clutter and more essence? Or even because the aircraft, in the obscurity of darkness, makes a more serious student of its pilot? One cannot pretend one’s way through the black—only attend, adjust, respect. And when one does that, the rewards are not fireworks but a deeper kind of quiet: the kind that settles a person into themselves, the kind that turns “aviator” from a noun into a way of paying attention.

Night flight teaches the aviator that the sky never really holds you. For a while, it tolerates your weight. The air is what will take you in, accept your shape, carry your small assertions across distances that would humble you on foot. You are not owed the air. You are invited into it. Tonight, a patient machine and I asked permission to be kept aloft and were granted it for a while. In the morning, I will be just a person again. But tonight, for that briefest time between those two aprons, I placed two wings precisely between water and stars, and that was everything.

 

Michael  Mayson