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We have all heard the aviation adage about sounds and bumps that can only be heard at night, and we all under- stand its meaning. Usually, we have no significant follow-on bump but some- times the noise becomes relevant and will precipitate a reaction, checklist procedure or a decision –particularly if the noise is recurring. Perhaps the bump/noise causes a “skipped heart- beat,” the implementation of a check- list procedure or, if we have simply heard too many bumps in the night this night, an early landing. After all, our heightened awareness at night can be frightening and fatiguing. Here are a couple of stories from readers about such events:
From Ray A.
I departed Owensboro, KY, at 0300 with a planned arrival of 0600 in Charles- ton, SC. It was a solo flight at FL190 in my Duke. About 45 minutes into the clear, half-moon night, I heard a solid thump that seemed to originate on my right wing. Man, I was startled! The darkness then seemed to close in as the night time psyche kicked in. I crosschecked the instruments to get a sense of how the aircraft was performing. Systems were normal; the aircraft continued to perform perfectly, but I still worried and wondered what happened? What could be wrong? What is going to happen next! I was never so happy to see the sunrise. It was a beauti- ful sight and all my worries dissipated. I never discovered what caused the bump in the night or if it was just my mind playing tricks on me.
From Peter M.
I was flying from SAV to DPA one moonlit night above a cloud layer at FL200 when I heard a bang followed by a hissing sound. Hearing a bang through the Bose headset made me think that it must be something serious, possibly a pressurization issue. But cabin psid seemed ok and cabin rate of climb was zero. Then I thought maybe I hit a bird and the hissing sound was related to a bird strike. I put on my O2 mask just in case. Then I thought, since I came from Georgia, maybe there’s a snake in the airplane – a very loud snake! I was perplexed and ready to make the may- day call as I kept mentally and visually chasing the sound. But the remainder of the flight was normal. The hissing sound was there on the next flight and the flight
after that. I didn’t realize it until I took off my headset and noticed a difference in the sound. Turns out my headset ear cup wasn’t making a good seal and that was causing a hissing sound. It probably had been that way all along and I never gave it a second thought until that night when my nighttime senses let the boogeyman come to scare me. The bang that I heard is still a mystery.
This next event, while not after civil twilight, typifies the confusion and anxiety we may encounter after hear- ing an unfamiliar noise.
From Michael H.
Crossing the Sierra Nevada mountain range in a C-152, I was climbing through 12,000 feet when there was a loud explo- sion. Even with a noise-canceling head- set, it sounded as if the engine had come apart. Training kicked in and I recited my ABCs aloud: Airspeed, Best place to land and Cockpit. Then I realized that the engine was still running. A further check of the airplane revealed no defects. The rest of the flight was one of heightened senses and paranoia. Several hours later, while unpacking my luggage, I discovered that the bag of Keebler Soft Batch cookies that I had purchased in the Central Valley of California (240’ MSL) had exploded in the grocery bag right behind my head.
Why Do We Hear More Things at Night?
Flying is hypnotic and all pilots are willing victims to the spell.
– Ernest K. Gann
Hyperesthesia is an increase in the sensitivity of any of your senses: sight, sound, touch, and smell. It can affect just one or all of the senses. Often, the heightening of an individual sense is referred to by a separate name. For ex- ample, increased sensitivity of touch is called tactile sensitivity, and increased sensitivity of sound is called auditory sensitivity. However, when surround- ed by silence, the brain creates noise to fill the silence and we hear this as tinnitus (the perception of noise or ringing in the ears). But tinnitus is not our issue at night because the airplane produces enough white noise to over- ride tinnitus. It’s the noisy, nighttime goblins threatening to increase drag, remove lift, destroy thrust, get us lost, run us out of gas or fill our airplane with smoke that we always think about and hear at night. But why do we hear, or think we hear, more things at night?
It could be our pilot sense as de- scribed by Ernie Gann: “It’s when things are going just right that you’d better be suspicious. There you are, fat as can be. The whole world is yours and you’re the answer to the Wright broth- ers’ prayers. You say to yourself, noth- ing can go wrong...all my trespasses are forgiven. Best you not believe it.”
So perhaps it’s our senses telling us to hear and feel every single thing lest the ground riseth to smite us. Hear- ing an unexpected noise in the dark is scary. Sometimes the things that go bump in the night are not quickly identified, and thoughts of fatal fail- ure modes enter our mind. Maybe it’s because the night seems still, the radios are quiet, and in the middle
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October 2020 / TWIN & TURBINE • 23