My airplane pilot friend and I decided we were going to fly into Atwood Friday night for the football game. So we called a couple of our friends to fly with us. Friday night we left town at about 6:00 p.m. for the quick trip to Atwood and arrived there in plenty of time to catch a ride into town and watch the game.

After the game was over, we drove the courtesy car back to the airport and checked out our plane and took off headed north due to the wind was out of the north. There was no moon above as we left the ground. I was pilot in charge, sitting in the left seat as we took off and it was really, really dark out in front of us. There is almost nothing north of Atwood, since the airport is north of town. It was instrument flight conditions as we left the ground. But being just a visual flight rules pilot, I was not focused on my instruments, but was looking exclusively out the windshield.

I was pulling back on the yoke too much and at one point I could not pull it back anymore and was kind of fighting the yoke thinking what is going on? I looked over at my friend and he had his hand on the yoke and said to me, “Look at your instruments?” I did and saw immediately that the nose of the plane was too high.

So I pushed the yoke forward and put the nose of the plane where it needed to be and then did a 180 degree turn to head back home. As we headed south we flew right over Atwood and could see the long line of cars headed south on the highway. We now could fly VFR all the way home.

My pilot friend told me, as we flew home; that he had flown out of Atwood before at night and said it was good instrument training on a dark night. No telling what would have happened if my friend had not been with me that night.

Proverbs 13:20 Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.