Gerald Sylvester wrote
When I first got my PPL almost a year ago, my first passengers were
beyond nervous with my being so green. The first few passengers raved
and now people are going out of their way to come visit and go for a
ride.

And in reality, that means nothing. Non-pilot pax are not equipped to
evaluate the safety or proficiency of a pilot in any meaningful way.
For that reason, we as pilots are responsible for managing risk for
them.

I'm now working on my IFR rating right. In this newsgroup
we had a thread running about taking friends and family into IMC and
their reactions and the added risks compared to VMC flights. For
me, going into IMC gets the adrenaline running for a week if not
more. I love the challenge but someday I just can't imagine
my friends and family feeling comfortable when they can't see anything
but the inside of the flask they are drinking from and the ceiling
as they pray.

I fairly routinely carry non-pilot passengers in IMC. None of them
have been uncomfortable, primarily because they have noted no changes
in how the airplane is flown, and they can see that I'm comfortable.
You see, as you develop more experience, it takes more to get the
adrenaline going. I find that simply going into IMC is no longer
enough to even break the ho-hum factor. Now if we're talking about an
overwater crossing, out of radio and RADAR contact, steering around
the storms using spherics, that's something. I would not take a
non-pilot passenger on a trip like that.

In fact, it's a good rule of thumb that if a flight is going to get
your adrenaline going, you shouldn't be carrying a passenger who can't
himself evaluate the risk.

Flying hard IMC in
a bug smasher whether it is a C152 or a SR22 or a certified Known Ice
C210 with friends and family seems almost as bad as ferry crossing.

I think that's nonsense of the first order. There is a HUGE
difference between doing it in a C-152 equipped for minimum IFR (how
else? There isn't the panel space nor the useful load for anything
more) and a well-equipped T-210 with known ice. There is NO TRUTH
WHATSOEVER to the idea that if you're not burning kerosene you might
as well be in a C-152. All airplanes have their operating envelopes
and risk factors, and there is not some huge step that is suddenly
crossed when you start buring kerosene.

You
might have some more airports to land at in case of an emergency but if
is hard IMC with 300 AGL ceilings, you really have the odds stacked
against you in both cases.

Do you know how rare it is to have widespread areas of 300 AGL
ceilings? I agree with you - widespread ceilings of 300 AGL or less
give you few options in a single. Few does not mean none. We have a
regular contributor here who flies a 210 and regularly practices a
deadstick instrument approach. Of course you have a lot more options
for that if you cruise at 15,000 ft than if you cruise at 5,000. Lots
of T-210's cruising at those altitudes, but no C-152's. And of course
in a light twin flying over relatively flat terrain, widespread 300 ft
ceilings are no big deal if your systems are properly redundant. Some
are, some are not.

In this case, she made the ferry crossing 'fine.' She got across the
pond after all but the bad part was she was a few miles short of
perfect. The bad part is her decision making about the
airworthiness of the plane combined with weather and fuel planning were
quite poor.

But the reality is that what took her out was a point failure for
which she did not have a backup. That's something to think about.

The average pilot does not get taken out by a point failure, but then
the average pilot does not fly or train often enough to be proficient
for IFR - and that includes the instrument rated pilots. If you're
going to fly IFR enough to be good at it, you're looking at a lot of
exposure to point failures, and need to think about having backups for
stuff. If you're going to be only an occasional IFR pilot, as is the
case for most active instrument rated private pilots, then don't worry
too much about redundancy. Worry about your proficiency, because
that's what causes most of the accidents. In that case, you're
probably safer in a C-152 than you would be in a T-210 - or a King
Air.

Michael