Jay Honeck wrote:


I did not find that my VFR skills deteriorated during my IFR training --
although I did discover that my ability to maintain altitude and heading
precisely certainly improved. In fact, I became a sharper pilot all around
during my training.

Everybody's different I guess but when I fly VFR it is almost totally
seat of the pants, which is nearly the exact opposite of flying IFR. I
fly final to dirt strips beneath the stall horn, fly below the tops of
the mountains up against the downwind side for lift. I fly by sight and
sound. The sound of the air and the engine, not by any numbers on the
airspeed indicator. I can maintain any airspeed, altitude or attitude
to fairly precise limits, but why?



What aspects deteriorate, in your opinion?

Flying IFR gets you out of tune with the plane. It simply becomes a
transportation vehicle because it is drilled into you to never get
anywhere near the flight envelope edges. Othen than popping out and
having the runway right in front of you where you expect it to be IFR
flying sucks all the fun out of flying