On Jan 29, 8:33*am, gpsman wrote:
On Jan 28, 8:57*pm, Bug Dout wrote:

gpsman writes:
Practically, I think you have to train and remain proficient in IFR.

Eh? Not at all. Even in Seattle or such areas there are plenty of VFR
only pilots. Weather clears up in a few days. *Cross country trips are
very much possible strictly VFR.

Of course, the above assumes flying for a hobby. *Flying for
committments and deadlines, yes, IFR is necessary to be safe...or
safer.

I've given the wrong impression. *An instrument rating is my personal
standard of practicality/proficiency/saferness... that's tied to my
bank account.

I've accumulated 500 hours, over 34 years, and I'm just never
comfortable because I know I'm not really proficient.

So, I think I know more about the rust that forms from not flying than
I do actual flying, but the economy has put me 6-7 years from being
able to comfortably invest the time and money my definition of
proficient requires.
*-----

- gpsman

I concur with gpsman. I am a fairly high time pilot, use a Mooney for
business purposes so most often file IFR. Once a year or so I take a
trip that pretty much leads me across the country, visitng important
customers, and at the end of the trip I am a MUCH sharper pilot than
at the beginning. Hands on altitude holding gets to be plus or minus a
whisper, ILSs are within a dot, and best of all, towards the end of a
multiday trip the cockpit workload seems trivial: staying ahead of the
airplane is so much easier. The moral of this story is, to be
'current' may mean certain operations within the last 90 days, to be
proficient for me at least the time window is more nearly a week or
ten days. Real life precludes staying at that level of proficiency. so
probably there is a slight increase in risk. Now here's an interesting
question, given the mechanical failure rates of airplanes. Is flying
more often to maintain proficiency subjecting the pilot to increased
risk because of the exposure to equipment failure? Somewhere there's a
minimum or a cusp in that curve, I am not sure where it is.

Sorry spammers, this thread is actually aviation related!