"Travis Marlatte" wrote
I said "many" not "all."

So what is many? 90%? 50%? 10%? 1%? There are 200,000+ private
pilots without instrument ratings out there. Even 1% of that is 2,000
- arguably "many" people. Should we be gearing procedures to that 1%?

Learning to crawl and walk by trusting our physical sensations came before
that.

I'm not convinced we have to learn to crawl, or even walk. Certainly
nobody has to teach us. The ability to do so is hardwired; it's
generally just a matter of getting the muscles to catch up. Most
people are taught to fly an airplane. It's a very different activity,
and much less physically complex.

Walking is an extremely complex operation. When people are paralyzed
due to a severed spinal column, it is possible to artificially
stimulate the nerves in their legs and get them to move. It's been
possible for decades, and decades ago computers were programmed to
stimulate their nerves and get the legs to move sufficiently to ride a
tricycle. Walking, however, is still out of the question despite
decades of improvement in computers.

Flying an airplane straight and level on instruments? I believe the
first autopilots were built in the 1930's. That gives you some feel
for the relative complexity of the tasks.

The initial discussion got started by questioning whether ATC would give a
VFR flight a break and keep them over land versus dark water. Your claim is
that every pilot should have received sufficient training and be able to fly
comfortably without any visual references.

And I think that makes a lot of sense. It's a simple task, and
private pilots are trained for it.

I just don't think that is the case. The instrument training provided during
primary training is designed to give pilots a way out should they
inadvertently fly into a cloud - not to support a longer flight.

Nothing in the PTS supports this view. Instrument maneuvers are not
classed with emergencies, and they include tracking VOR radials which
certainly implies longer flights than are necessary to exit a cloud
that was entered inadvertenetly.

I agree that it was a lot of U and D. That was my point. There are many
uncertainties that should cause some doubt.

No, that's not what I said at all. I don't agree that there's a lot
of uncertainty and doubt - I think you are creating uncertainty and
doubt needlessly.

Michael