Are pilots really good or just lucky???

On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 06:31:08 -0600, "Dan Luke"
wrote:


"Gerald Sylvester" wrote:
[snip]
So with my reasoning which certainly could be far off base, I guess my
question is, do you consider taking friends and family into
hard IMC that risky.

Solid IMC? sure and without hesitation.
Solid IMC and turbulence, the occasional embedded TS, or ice. Not a
chance.

I wouldn't take friends and family without
another
pilot on a flight down to minimums but I'm wondering if IFR in

It depends on two things. How much you fly and your comfort factor.
I find flying down to minimums little different than breaking out a
100 or 200 feet above minimums.

anything
but turbine powered aircraft is just outright stupid in a way.

It's too risky, IMO, to take my family into large areas of very low IMC
in my SE airplane. There just aren't enough "outs" available in case of
trouble. Neither will I depart with non-pilot pax aboard if the airport
is at or below minimums.

To me, IFR isn't all that different than VFR any more. If find that to
be true even in solid IMC. Where I draw the line with passengers is
turbulence.

I was lucky I had instructors who put me through a lot of IMC right
down to minimums so by the time I received my rating I felt competent
(and comfortable) to fly down to minimums and did. Actually my first
solo IFR flight was near minimums on both ends. Coming home it was
forecast to be below minimums for 3BS, but above for MBS which is just
11.3 miles and they have and ILS. Had to file FNT as the alternate,
but you can go any where.

Shot the VOR-A into 3BS and it was good, but 10 minutes earlier, or
later and it would have been doing the missed to the ILS at MBS and
having my wife pick me up. A couple miles either side of the approach
was well below minimums. When I called the airport in site, there was
a pause and APP asked what conditions looked like.

As far as passengers I really don't see it as any more risky than VFR,
but I won't take inexperienced passengers into solid IMC. I don't
like cleaning airplanes.

True, I fly over the mid west which is mostly flat land and if it's
minimums or above you can make a visual landing ... somewhere. OTOH
there are a *lot* of densely wooded areas.

I look at it this way. *If* I'm comfortable with the conditions I'll
take friends and family. If I find the "pucker factor" to be
uncomfortable, I not only won't take friends and family, I won't go
either.

My life is every bit as important to me as any one else's. My basic
rule, which is very easy to keep; I won't take some one else where I
wouldn't go. :-))

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com