Well said. That's the balancing act we are often faced with.
I guess that walking away from it at the end is the final
determinant of 'not bad'.

T o d d P a t t i s t wrote:
Maule Driver wrote:


Exercising good judgment is the hard one.


Yes, and I'd add that the hardest part is deciding what is
"good." It's not really all that hard to fly only locally
on perfect VFR days, but you don't gain much skill that way.

Sometimes, to be safe over the long haul, you need to have
skills that you can only get by going just a bit farther
down the road than you've gone before. The trick is to take
that next step when everything is in your favor and to make
it small enough that your current skills keep you safe.