On Apr 14, 9:26 am, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
[snip]
I agree with everything you have said, Matt, except that your
comparison assumes that you don't have the third option, which is to
stay on the ground.

Obviously flying VFR into IMC is going to kill you. Good VFR pilots
stay on the ground when the weather goes to pot.

[snip]
Jay,

You are absolutely correct: ALL competent pilots choose to stay on the
ground sometimes.

Just because you have an instrument rating dosen't mean you have to
make a particular flight. You do have more options with the rating
(and proficiency!) than without.

I've read some of your other posts where you stated that something
under 5% of your potential flights were canceled by weather even
though you only choose to fly VFR. If that's true, my personal opinion
is you don't need the rating or the extra work to stay proficient. Why
bother if you're not going to use it?

I plan to start mine as soon as I can afford it. But I want to use
mine to travel on business, and I have the kind of business trips in
my future that make a lot of sense in GA: 200-300nm trips where
airlines take 4-8 hours door to door because of routing & security &
general hassle. Being able to fly when there is weather in between
here & there, or I have to punch out of a low cloud base here or
through an overcast there will help me a lot. I will have STRICT
personal minimums (as I do for VFR) that I WILL follow.

I personally am reconciled with the risks for two reasons: 1) I want
to live, not just survive 2) There is a lot of variability from pilot
to pilot that statistics can never cover.

John Stevens