What does the FAA consider night flight time in ones pilot log?

Question

Please feel free to indentify the FAR quote defining this....what hours? Links....if you can...

Answer 1

night - end of evening civil twlight to morning of civil twilight

postion light on from sunset to sunrise

night curreny starts one hour after sunset

technicall according to the faa test question you can be not night current and be up in the air up too 59  mins past sunset but not actually have night currency because that start one hr past sunset....

just stay night current and follow th e currency req/reg

Answer 2

Night is defined as "the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the American Air Almanac, converted to local time."

This ends up being 1 hour after sunset and 1 hour prior to sunrise.

References

FAR: Subchapter A (Definitions)

FAR: 61.57b(1)

I hope this helps answer your question.

Have a good flight!

Answer 3

Below is the official FAA answer found in FAR 1.1

Night means the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the American Air Almanac, converted to local time.

The definition of the word ”night” as it applies to logging flight time and an interpretation of Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) Section 61.57(d).

The word ”night” is defined in the FAR's in Section 1.1.That section states that night ”means the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the American Air Almanac, converted to local time.  Ã¢Â€ÂThe Almanac contains tables that show evening civil twilight and morning civil twilight for different latitudes.  From these tables, you can determine when evening civil twilight ends and morning civil twilight begins, convert these figures into local time, and calculate the time spent in night flight accordingly.  Flight time after evening civil twilight ends and before morning civil twilight begins can be properly logged as night flight time.

FAR Section 61.57(d) contains the recent night flight experience requirements applicable to persons who act as pilot in command of an aircraft.  The description of night as the ”period beginning 1 hour after sunset and beginning 1 hour before sunrise (as published in the American Air Almanac)” applies only to the passenger–carrying requirements of that section.  This definition of ”night” should be used only for the purposes of that section.

Answer 4

The Air Almanac's civil twilight table is available at the US Naval Observatory website.  So is its table of sunrise and sunset.  You can have it display the times for your location.  

You can see that the difference is not one hour; it is about a half hour.  

The Air Almanac also explains how the tabulated sunrise and sunset times can be corrected for altitude.