"Jay Honeck" wrote in news:1176559225.748776.282140
@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com:

IFR pilots can more easily be lured into making riskier flights.

Therein lies the rub. My weather tolerance is already higher (or,
would that be lower?) than Mary's. In other words, I will launch on a
flight with higher winds and lower visibility than Mary will, and this
has held true since she got her ticket.

Why? I don't know. Her assessment of risk is more strict than mine,
and her comfort level is correspondingly lower.

Projecting ourselves into the instrument rating, say, three years from
now, I wonder how our preflight planning would go? Right now, she is
comfortable flying with me at my comfort level -- she has no problem
skipping a leg if the weather is below her comfort -- but will that
hold true in IMC?

I think if it were just me flying, getting the IR -- and using it --
would be a simple, logical next step. Factor in Mary and the kids,
and it becomes much more problematic.

Risk assessment of this sort is difficult.

If she already trusts you to use good judgement now, I don't think that
will change just because the weather will be lower. Actually, the fact that
she already flies with you even when she wouldn't fly herself implies that
she would continue to do so if you had your IR. You'll have done the
training, and having your family with you will probably make you more
conservative, not more liberal. If you don't feel up to it, you'll probably
call it off rather than risk your whole family. But I suspect there will
also be plenty of times when you will be glad to be able to fly a
relatively relaxing IFR flight through a layer that you would have
otherwise had to scud run through or around.

Initially you may create some personal minimums that will keep you safe -
like not flying if you don't have a VFR alternate, or if the ceilings are
lower than 1000', etc. This way if something does go wrong, you have more
options. Then, as everybody gets more comfortable with the whole flying in
the soup thing, you may decide to reduce those minimums, or start being
slightly more flexible. Because your airport doesn't have a precision
approach, you're pretty much locked into 500' ceilings anyway.

After I had flown IFR for a while, I have become a little more liberal
with minimums when flying home, since it's an ILS and I'm extremely
familiar with the area and the approach and know what to expect from ATC.

But I haven't flown much IFR in the last 4 months or so, and even though
I'm still legally current for another month or so, I wouldn't fly home in
500' today... (I've been flying with a lot of tray tables in front of me
lately.)

Anyway, nothing is stopping you from making good decisions just because
you have your IR. And my guess is that Mary will be a good cross-check
without overly inhibiting you because she is a pilot too.