On Jul 6, 4:56 am, Thomas Borchert
wrote:
..an instrument rating, says Aviation Consumer in a very interesting
and thought-provoking (to me) article in the current issue.

They say collision avoidance gear and all those other gadgets are
really nice, but looking at the accident records, it's pretty clear
that constant and consistent training is the best investment in safety
anyone could make, with the IR at the top of the list. The have a total
of ten items, and a fuel totalizer is at the top together with
training. Only after that comes inflight weather and the other stuff.

I have to agree - and reading Jay's post about his friends made me post
this.

Thoughts?

I enjoyed and learned a lot from that article. But I about fell out
of my chair when they asserted that you can get a commercial rating
for $1500, including airplane time. WTF??? Maybe if you already have
all the required aeronautical experience, including the long solo
cross country and the 2 long cross country training flights, and all
the solo night t/o and landings at towered airports (and/or are based
at a towered airport so you don't have to fly x-c to get this), and
already have the 10 hours of complex time because you own a Mooney or
something, and all you need to do is learn the manuevers and take the
checkride, but I found that asssertion to be surprisingly out of touch
with reality, considering how good they usually are about being
realistic with costs.