I was flying a Piper Cherokee 180, one I had rented and flown many times before. Outbound, I had flown alone from Seattle to an airstrip at Sekiu, Washington. The airstrip serves a tiny fishing village along the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula 150 miles west of Seattle. Although I had landed in daylight, I was attending a meeting that I knew would probably not be over till evening. That meant a night takeoff for the return trip. I also expected to be carrying two passengers with me. The year was 1975, but the lessons learned are timely today.
I had a private pilot license, single-engine land, but no instrument rating. I had accumulated about 500 hours, including instruction in night flying and about 13 hours of night flight. I considered myself a prudent pilot, inclined to plan carefully for each flight and any challenges it posed. The field from which I would be taking off did pose serious challenges. At the time, the runway was an unpaved clearing atop a hill, without any lights at the field at all. The runway ran east and west. Along the north side of the runway was a forest of tall Douglas firs, about 200 feet from the edge of the runway. The runway was not level and had a hump about a third of the way to the end. I was concerned about the darkness of the field, but my friends said they would line up their trucks along the field, shining their headlights across the runway. I thought (foolishly as it turned out) that I could use these lights to guide me during my takeoff run.
