I've flown for almost 10 years, and almost 900 hours, VFR. Throw in
another
500 hours with Mary as PIC during that period. There have been some times
when I wished I had the rating, but -- more often than not -- when I've
been
grounded due to weather, an IFR rating wouldn't have helped. My plane is
simply not capable of handling ice, snow or thunderstorms -- and that
covers
95% of the times I've been on the ground, cursing the weather gods...

Okay. I think that's probably true for most places. When I decided to go
for my instrument rating, I was living on the Puget Sound, and all I needed
from the rating was to climb a few thousand feet to get above the marine
layer
into clear and 1e6-mile visibility.

Here on the other Sound, coming home from FL last month (with my new
plane!),
the trip was 95% VMC, but I couldn't have done it without the instrument
rating.

That said, while the rating does have its utility, it definitely makes the
go/nogo decision harder, not easier.


My personal experience is that IFR is better. I'm rated, and I had owned a
Mooney based in eastern MA, and used it mostly for business travel. About 10%
of my planned trips were cancelled because oof icing, thunder storms, no solid
gold alternate, things like that. The 90% of the trips I did make were a LOT
more comfortable under IFR, even though maybe only 20 to 30% involved actual
IMC. Some of those could have been done VFR, but who wants to fly VFR in 3 mile
vis, or less than 3000 feet for 3 or 4 hours. It's much nicer being in the
soup, having Center tell you about traffic, getting long straight in approaches
to major airports ("cleared ILS to runway 26" is so nice to hear when you're
westbound after 3 hours flight), not having to sweat termanl control zones and
the like. It makes the airplane a lot more efficient.

Then there's flying at night. Even if the weather guessers promise CAVU, flying
IFR at night is prudent adn I think much safer.

So, my experience in the northeast at least is that IFR increases the
likelihood of making a planned trip from the 60 to 70 percent range to the 90
percent range in a reasonably equipt SEL airplane. I also like to think it
increases safety quite a lot.

I just glanced through my pilot's log book -- looks like about 20% of the
flights I've logged show actual instrument conditions.

That's one SEL pilot's experience -- it may be typical for someone flying in
the Northeast.