David Megginson wrote in message ...
And please remember, my original point was that you should let go of
the yoke in IMC when you are not looking at the attitude instruments

And my original point is that this is not a "one size fits all"
solution to lack of autopilot. There are planes where this will
get you into trouble.

My
problem was that I would involuntarily pull the yoke slightly to the
right every time I leaned over to look at the mag compass straight on
-- the movement takes well under a second, but now I know to release
the yoke before I do it.

If I released the yoke for small tasks like this, Andrew's
disparate AA5B experience notwithstanding, my flying would definately
suffer. In fact it used to suffer and I have the scabs from remedial
CFI beating to prove it *g*.

With practice, one learns to compensate and *not* pull the yoke
while performing other tasks. You move your eyes or position,
scan to be sure you're compensating correctly, then go back to
task.

Cheers,
Sydney