NW_PILOT wrote:
My son went to sleep on me and the
batteries died in the CD player....


Steven,
I think we have roughly the same experience. I have just over 400hrs
in 4 years and have owned a plane the last two years. I agree that
night flying is a great experience but we have limited ourselves to
only local airports on full moon nights. We attend Wings Safety
Seminars regularly and at least once a year, there is a review on
accident statistics. The most deadly combination is always some
various combinations of IMC (terrain), out-of-fuel, equipment
malfunctions AND night flying.
I cringed in reading the heading of your post: night flying +
mountains + single engine plane, but thought to myself that everybody
had their own flying comfort level. Some are more willing to take a
risk than others.
The batteries in the CD player died. The batteries in your GPS
may die suddenly too. In our short two years of plane ownership, we
had seen our engine need replacement with 3 cracked cylinders without
any warning signs (compressions were in the high 70's, oil analysis
were fine, engine ran great etc.). We had a complete electrical
failure in one trip due to bad crimped job of one of the alternator
wires (the logbook indicated that it was done 5 years ago). The carb
heat failed to work suddenly one day due to a crack in the box.
Everytime that we opened the hood (at least every other month in the 25
hrs oil change), we inspected everything carefully. We also do at least
15- minutes preflight check, but we always expect that someday
something in that 30-years old plane may break.
My discomfort level went sky high in knowing that your son
(presumably a youngster) was with you. I would never want to tell a
parent how to treat their children. I just want to register my feeling
as a pilot and a mother.

Hai Longworth