Megan, play the ball and not the person.
The reasons presented in this thread (that even the best can screw up a night departure) were:
- Sometimes you are not mentally prepared. (Post #253)
- You hold on too long to visual clues and become subject to visual illusions. (Post #253)
- It's so dark out there, you can't see a thing ("deep IMC"). (sea plane's posts #239-247)
- The bright reflection of ground objects illuminated by the landing light messes up your night vision, and your eyes don't adapt quickly enough when it gets dark. (Post #253)
While all this is true, the charter client expects us to be able to manage this situation correctly, in order to provide a reliably safe air service. It appears that some of us, even though licensed to and experienced in flying a twin in IMC as part of a two pilot set-up, would still wish to tell the charter client that mostly it should be fine but on occasion - despite best preparation and efforts - the above listed problems might catch us out, and we all die!
This is not what I believe. Please educate me why the simple rules that I had stated here would not guarantee a safe night departure (unless mechanical malfunction):
- Be mentally prepared for the back hole departure.
- Treat any night departure as an IMC departure.
- Don't use landing lights on departure.
- Fly on instruments before you lose visual clues.
There are a number of Ppruners who have voiced similar concerns (e..g, post #227, 245, 248, 265). It would be good if one could reach consensus on this question.