"Guy Elden Jr." wrote:
Takeoff out of CDW was uneventful, although the controller was a bit pushy
when I wanted to clarify the squawk before departing... she said "You need
to get rolling" after confirming the code was correct... somebody on
downwind was undoubtedly going to plow into me I guess if I didn't hurry
along.

More likely, the tower was given a small window by NY Approach to
release you. At a place like CDW (i.e. any towered airport that doesn't
have their own approach control), when you tell the tower you're ready
to go, the tower calls the remote approach facility and requests
permission to launch you. This is why the tower says "hold for
release". When approach tells tower to release you, tower clears you
for takeoff. The window of time in which the tower is allowed to
release you may be very small. At someplace like CDW, they've got to
find a gap in the TEB, MMU, and maybe even EWR traffic to fit you in.
Until they get you radar identified, they're tying up a big chunk of
airspace for you. That's why the tower guy was trying to hurry you
along.

All that being said, NEVER let anybody rush you. Nothing bad can happen
as long as your wheels are still on the taxiway. You did exactly the
right thing asking for clarification of something you weren't sure about
before moving onto the runway. The worst that could have happened if
you missed the window is the tower controller would have been annoyed
that he had to call approach back and ask for another release window,
and you might have been delayed a few minutes.

So to sum up: I had 1 VOR, 1 COM, and no backups in the plane for this trip.
And the COM was flaky toward the end. Methinks this plane is about to be
decommissioned from the flight line, because the owner refuses to put any
more money into it. It also just came out of 100 hour, so should (in theory)
be at its best operating capacity. I know I won't be trying any more trips
at night or IFR in it anytime soon, but I'm glad I had the chance to push
the boundaries a bit with the bare minimums for night IFR flight.

Pardon my pessimism, but I read the story as a disaster unfolding with a
lucky ending despite bad decision making. You were single pilot IFR, at
night, in deteriorating weather. You had no previous experience in this
environment. You had three equipment failures (flashlight, nav/com, and
adf), two of which you knew about before you left the ground yet decided
to depart anyway.

Actually, you had another equipment failure you knew about before you
took off: runway 4/22 was closed. You not only didn't have the LOC
approach available, but you were also down to one runway, substantially
shorter than the main one, with inferior lighting and terrain
obstructing one end.

Finally, your last remaining radio started to act up on you. What would
you have done if the problem was something in the electrical system and
the slowly decaying avionics were just the early symptoms? What if
instead of getting better, the last radio died too?

The most obvious immediate problem would have been that you would have
no way to talk to ATC (unless you carry a handheld radio). You would
have also had no way to navigate. Do you have a handheld GPS? It's
night and the weather is going down. Was visibility still good enough
to find your way home visually? You would also have no way to turn the
runway lights on at an uncontrolled airport.

What were you flying? A 172 with electric flaps? If so, you might not
have had enough power left to put the flaps down. 27 has 2900 feet
after the displaced threshold. Under normal conditions, that's not a
big deal. But can you handle that with no flaps, no landing light, at
night, no VASI, and wet pavement? Maybe your last remaining flashlight
went out too, so you can't even see the ASI?

The point is, no single one of the problems you encountered was bad
enough to be critical, but accidents are not usually caused by single
problems, they're caused by chains of events. Each one eats into the
number of options you've got left until you don't have any left at all
and you die. The key to avoiding this is to recognize the chain early
and do something to break it.

Your flashlight died. Do they sell flashlights in the pilot shop?
Could you have delayed your flight 10 minutes to run back into the FBO
and buy a new one? Why not just carry several? I've got about 3 or 4
in my flight bag.

Your radio died. At night, during the week, with marginal weather, the
FBO probably has a flightline full of airplanes sitting idle. Could you
have gone back in and told them to give you a different plane?

Your ADF died on the way into Stewart. Could you have found a mechanic
while you were on the ground to come take a look at it and make sure
nothing systemic was going on with the electrical system?

Your second radio started flaking out. Could you have turned around at
that point, gotten back on the ground at SWF, and sorted things out?
Maybe called the FBO and told them to send another plane up to get you?