My 2c... your friend is exaggerating quite a lot, but what he says
isn't completely unfounded either. I would say that to stay safe you
need to do a lot more than the FARs say (one approach every
month on average). Personally I try to get out whenever we have
bad (but not icing or convective) weather for some actual time,
and I do recurrent training with an instructor less often than I'd
like but still every couple of months. I feel comfortable doing
an ILS to minimums or flying through the odd cold front (though
I'm always glad when *that* is over).

So imho an IR is something you have to work harder at keeping
non-rusty than for VFR.

John

"Paul Folbrecht" wrote in message
ink.net...
I had always planned on getting my instrument rating- within the next
year, probably. But last weekend I had a chat with someone who really
got me thinking about it.

This guy is a friend of a friend and is a retired 20,000 hour ATP.
Retired in the 80s flying 707s and I forget what else. Instructed in
Cubs for years. (Guy has nine count 'em nine engine failures in Cubs!
Two inside 20 minutes once!)

So, this is what he told me: unless I'm going to be flying 3 times/week
at least, getting my instrument ticket is a waste and possibly dangerous
as well. He thinks I'll be more likely to end up dead with it than
without it. (Logic being, obviously, that the ticket will give me such
a sense of security that I won't be afraid of hard IMC even when I'm not
current enough to handle it.)

Thoughts on this??