A Lieberma wrote:
Really, sure hope you are saying the above "tongue in cheek"????

I think what he says is about right - or used to be, anyway, before
things like XM cockpit weather became available. Geography is a factor
as well.

Since getting my instrument ticket, I have only scrubbed two XC flights
due to thunderstorms

I think in the last five years I've scrubbed one - an Angel Flight that
would have required me to fly directly into the center of tropical
storm Charlie. I offered to buy my patient an airline ticket, but it
turned out that the airlines weren't flying either. Of course I have a
stormscope and excellent range (if I slow down I can cover 800+ nm).

Before I owned my current airplane, I scrubbed a lot of flights. The
range was not much more than 300 nm, and I had no weather avoidance
capability. The airplane makes a big difference.

Without cockpit weather, IMC in convective conditions is a fool's game
- and if you won't fly IMC, there's not much point in IFR (other than
dealing with the increasingly insane airspace these days). In just the
past few years, cockpit weather went from being something generally
available only in the high end airplanes (never have seen a Skyhawk
with a stormscope, though nothing prevents it) and often of
questionable utility (the older spherics units were very
installation-dependent and often worked poorly), to being the province
of technogeeks willing to carry laptops or PDA's in the cockpit, and
finally to a well-conceived integrated system like the Garmin 396. The
latter has made IMC flying in convective weather accessible to the
average pilot of a low end single, but it is a new thing.

Where I live, icing is a very rare encounter
(KMBO - Madison MS) though it does happen, just I have not had to scrub a
flight due to icing conditions. Can't speak for the northern folks.

I'm based out of Houston, so icing is even rarer for me - but when I
travel up north, it's an issue. I've seen a lot of people taking
chances with it. Personally, if I have the choice of flying low VFR
(say making the entire flight at 800-1200 ft) or going IFR in clouds
with the potential for icing, I'll choose low VFR every time.

Once I made a winter flight from Houston to New York, and it was IFR.
I made it a point to stay below the freezing level, with a way to bail
out if I couldn't stay above MIA and below the ice. Well, I made it -
but while I never doubted my ability escape the ice (I always had an
out) I wasn't sure I would make my destination until I was about 50
miles out. It was a 600+ nm leg. I could have been forced to land
short at any time. And with 300+ hp, I have some ability to deal with
a little ice. In my old 150 hp plane, I wouldn't have tried it.

Before my instrument ticket, I can't tell you how many XC flights I have
scrubbed due to benign IMC conditions.

Benign IMC - or just low VFR? These days, I see a lot of VFR pilots
who won't fly XC at 1000 AGL, never mind lower. It's a skill set, to
be sure, and not something to tackle if you don't know how, but I think
in the average Skyhawk-class airplane, it's often the safer, quicker,
more sensible option than filing IFR.

The difference is that you can take a training course in how to fly IFR
at the local flight school (or, better yet, the way Ron did it - with
PIC, which is expensive but worth it because it uses only experienced
instructors) but instruction in flying low VFR is rarely available
(never at the local flight school) and is generally reviled as scud
running.

In my experience, over 80% of the weather that is persistent (lasting
more than a few hours) actual IMC (ceilings consistently below 1000 ft
and/or visibilities consistently below 3 miles - and even some of that
weather can legally be flown VFR, with safety no worse than flying it
IFR in the average light single) is associated with either icing or
thunderstorms. Of course that can vary geographically.

The instrument rating is, more than anything, a tool for making
schedules more consistent. It is not a timesaver. I have well over
100 hours actual IMC, and I still have to say that the total time I
have saved in eliminated delays for weather is less than the time I
spent getting the rating and staying current.

Michael