[Night Vision]

Jack Prescott
(Internet Published) Sept 2000

For many years between 1960 to 1984. October to late February, I deliberately flew pigeons either directly into darkness or put them out knowing that they would probably fly right into darkness. This, I did for 5 days each week so that adds up to an awful lot of exercises in the dark. So we are looking at 3 to five night flys each week. An average of about 80 attempts each year for 23 years , a conservative estimate of 1, 700 experiences of night flying though not all of them successful, but since 1960 the most of my experiences were for pleasure and / or experiment. I did it because I really had no option. I either flew into dark or I didn't fly at all October to late February which could never tolerate. March to October there was sufficient day light for me to avoid night flying as a general rule, but by no means always.

Ones eyes do become used to observation of all kinds in bad light just as ones eyes become used to searching for and finding 3 tiny specks in a vast expanse of sky. It's just the same with a man who fishes small iron objects out of a furnace. His eyes become adapted and my own eyes became adapted to furnace work and to observation of slight movements in the bad light. Ref the observation of tipplers in bad light, much depends on the location of the loft. Ideally a loft, right out in the open in the middle of a large field would be an easy job for observation . When the loft and yard is screened by houses and trees the situation becomes illogical or even ridiculous.

Night flying involves low flying and even in broad daylight, low flying is suspective and requires constant watch. Nevertheless, what eye doesn't see, the mind doesn't worry about. I will only point out that from my own experiences and these night flying / low flying pigeons are apt to drop and if only for a few minutes on some building top which is out of sight due to bad light. Such a defect would be seen in broad daylight if indeed the timer was looking.

The bottom line therefore is that it takes a very very knowledgeable man with a trained pair of eyes to observe tipplers in built up areas or tree screened areas. Not only in bad light, bad in good light. Back at home night flying is impossible to supervise effectively but down there at Belongajack and with a little leg work it is much easier.

Now since I retired about 17 years ago, I have not had the need to deliberately fly into dark, I've timed for a few men into darkness but I never will again. My own, quite undistinguished efforts as an airman. RAF Bomber Command involved quite a few night flying raids on France, Holland and West German targets. A big part of the job was watching out, from a turret for (1) our own aircraft, to report, and avoid collision (2) the spotting of enemy night fighters--mostly as the squadron returned to fly over the North Sea and back to bases. The beams of searchlights completely ruined night vision so I didn't look.

Despite films, it is impossible to knock out searchlights with machine gun fire when flying at 5,000 feet. We didn't even try. At lower levels maybe but searchlights are against high flying aircraft only. At low levels the gun crews can see aircraft quite plainly on target approach as a rule.

Loft top lighting glare will ruin night visual capacity so some kind of screen has to be built so that the timer is not looking at the lights. Or he could hold up a light shield up to cut out the glare. Very often the timer would call out to the owner with advice about when to flutter the droppers because it is a fact that the owner cannot operate the droppers with loft top flood lighting and expect to see his tipplers in the very bad light. This is only logical and cooperative timer many very will contribute to success without breaking any rules.

I have no need to explain what it is like for a man to spend all day supervising tipplers and then the task of up to one hour of 100% surveillance peering into the gloom and straining what is left of his nerves. Now, I never got any decorations or awards for my jobs in the Air Force, nor did I think that I deserved any but after a day with Tipplers and into the dark, well, a purple heart or Victoria cross would do quite nicely. In northern Ireland they have relief timers I believe. Well! that's a step in the right direction, isn't it?