It was your basic dark and stormy night. The summer afternoon’s thunderstorms had long since begun dissipating and what remained of them had all moved away from my destination. The only weather was a stratus deck they left behind, which extended down to 2000 feet agl or so above the VFR-only airport. It was dark, the sun having long since set. And I admit it—I wanted to get home and sleep in my own bed for a change after more than a week on the road.
But my destination had little to offer in the way of facilities except relatively dim and sparse runway lighting. No beacon, no VASI and, of course, no published approach. Despite the pilot-controlled lights, the area around the runway was relatively dark—it was a classic “black hole” approach to land there at night—and trees on three sides of the runway meant I had to be close-in to spot it. Class C Regional was only a few miles away, with an ILS and GPS approaches, a control tower, radar, fuel and rental cars. Going there was Plan B if I couldn’t get into Plan A. What to do?
