On Mar 1, 12:19 pm, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
Bottom line is every pilot should take the training for the IR... Even
if he never uses the rating he will benefit..

Agree 100%. The training I did in preparation for the IR really made
me a much more precise pilot. I wish I had finished it up, but there
just weren't enough hours in the day, after we bought the hotel.

Again, my only purpose for this thread was to show (by newly-available
statistical analysis) that VFR cross-country flying is easily doable,
and that an instrument rating is not going to allow you to be an "all-
weather" flyer in the planes most of us own and operate.

I think most of us intuitively *knew* all this, but my friend's data
helps us see it more clearly.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"


I would concur with your observations. With my instrument students,
sometimes we end up waitng for several weeks to get find suitable IMC
conditions. Most of the time we get ice, thunderstorm or just too
windy. If you look in any pilots logbook, the IMC hours should tell
you something. Most of the pilot I fly with have about 5-10% IMC time,
which roughly corresponds with your ASOS observations. And this is in
the Great Lakes area, which has no shortage of IFR conditions. I used
to live in the desert southwest, where IMC was a rare novelty.

However, I almost always file IFR because it makes life so much
easier. May be I am being too lazy, but I can't imagine flying into
Chicago, Detroit or across the border into Canada without filing IFR.