On Mar 21, 8:04*am, Denny wrote:
Now, I don't know what I would have done had that been my son I was
picking up at that airport that night...
Given this airport down in a hole, a pitch black night, no horizon,
rapidly rising ground, and low clouds;

The dark and clouds shouldn't have been prohibitive, given the IFR
flight plan. The airport wasn't in a hole--terrain was flat for two
miles west and forever to the north and northeast (the direction of
the destination).

What puzzles me is not the decision to take off, but rather the low
climb rate and the decision to use runway 27. If the weather resembled
what was reported nearby at OKV, runway 9 would have had a negligible
tailwind component.