"The Weiss Family" wrote in message
...
Now you must realize that my plane was MAYBE 40 feet from the door he was
blocking, while Mr. Liability-Attorney's 727 was several hundred yards
farther out. I pointed this fact out to him, and also pointed to my
children, stating that all we wanted to do was get off the ground before
dark, since neither of us were legal to fly at night.

A bit off topic (and I don't want to diminish your point), but I just want
to make sure I understand the regulations...
Couldn't you or Mary just do three quick patterns (full-stop) and be legal
to fly at night?

If it wasn't dark yet in DSM, it'd be hard to get night current to be able
to land at IOW an hour after sunset. I suspect that it'd take Jay about an
hour to fly from DSM to IOW. I guess he could have landed after dark
somewhere between DSM and IOW, let everybody out and done the 3 full stop
landings and continue on. Jay didn't state what time this was happening, but
if he could have gotten into IOW by around 9:15PM, he would be legal. He may
have just used the night flying excuse to try to get out sooner. The
security people probably don't know anything about night currency.