Please educate me why the simple rules that I had stated here would not guarantee a safe night departure
Hot and Hi, if things were ever so simple. Picture if you will an operation owned lock stock and barrel by the worlds largest company. Nominally VFR operation but IMC (note not IFR) par for the course, sim training deemed valueless by the aviation advisor, but they relented on that point after a battle and allowed captains to attend every two years, but not the co-pilots. Result of that was any night flying was with two captains in the cockpit, which raises a whole new set of safety issues. See any safety holes? If the world was as simple as you allude. Even the revered Bob Hoover and Chuck Yeager screwed the pooch and were fortunate nothing but good luck permitted them to survive.