Why is that, anyway? Airspace issues?

Pretty much. We're so close to IAH that either the FAC will take us
into IAH approach airspace, or the miss will. We have no RCO on the
field, so the airspace would have to be protected for an awful long
time. Nobody will buy off. Thus the FAC is 025, with a turn on the
miss back to the IAF, and that way we can operate.

On top of that, the prevailing winds favor 9 and there is no circling
North of the field. Visualize this - landing on 9 in min vis means
flying an angled entry to a right upwind flown over or to the right of
the runway, then right crosswind, downwind, base, and final. It's
about the ugliest circle there is. At night, you get an additional
degree of difficulty - the lights are dim bulbs in mason jars, they are
not at the edges of the pavement, and in fact they are not even
centered on the centerline.

You would think we would have night and IFR crashes left and right, but
we don't. In fact, I'm not sure we ever have. We have plenty of
crashes, but it's almost always CFI's from the flight schools
(sometimes with a student, sometimes not) crashing in day-VMC.

Michael