Original Message

Recently while flying at night I landed at an airport for self service fuel. I had been into this airport many times and often departed the ramp across the runway direct to my destination. This time I did the same but on takeoff at about 15 feet and 30 kts I lost all forward visibility due to high humidity and the windshield fogging over.

My initial reaction was to pull back into a hover and land, but I knew there was uneven ground and trees ahead, so I pushed through looking at my attitude indicator for reference and the windshield cleared as I reached vy.

I fear had I slowed and attempted to hover the outcome may have been very bad without the required visibility. So lesson learned. With high humidity and small temp dew spread use the runway. During the last few takeoffs I have been looking at the attitude indicator more to have a reference should I ever find myself in a bad takeoff situation again.

I hope someone else can learn from this and welcome any techniques others have to share.