Jay Honeck must get an instrument rating

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ps.com...
1. Time. In 2002 I trained right up to the point where I was to be
signed off to take the IR flight test. Then we bought the hotel. It
just ain't gonna happen now, and never will until we get out of the
business we're in.

2. Utility. For giggles, we tracked our flying pattern for a year, and
kept track of the number of flights that we could have made with the
IR, that we didn't make VFR. In other words, how many flights were
cancelled because we didnt't have the rating.

The answer was amazing, to me. There were just a handfull -- three --
times that we would have flown with the IR, that we didn't fly. This
out of over 100 flights.

The reasons are simple: Most of our instrument weather in the upper
Midwest is of the kind that you would need a Pilatus (or better) to fly
in. Since we don't have icing capability, that essentially eliminates
flying in clouds from now through next March. And then the
thunderstorms start.

Now, if we lived in an area with lots of coastal fog, or high terrain,
things would be dramatically different. But we don't.

3. Instrument Flying Sucks. This is something I've rarely seen
discussed here (maybe never?), but instrument flying is one of the most
boring things I've done. Neither of us learned to fly so that we could
stare at what amounts to a computer screen for hours on end. In fact,
we learned to fly for the freedom of flight, and the sheer beauty of
the experience.

In other words, getting there -- not being there -- is the reason.

In the instrument flights I've flown, the flying experience has been
much closer to Microsoft Flight Simulator than any sort of a real
flying experience -- except that you actually ended up in Kansas City
at the end of the day. While there is a lot to be said for that, we
fly because we love to fly -- not simply to end up somewhere.

Further, flying the airways can truly ruin a flight, IMHO. Doing so
absolutely sucked the life out of the experience of flying past the
Grand Canyon last spring -- we simply couldn't see it because our
Victor airway didn't go that way, despite being in severe clear
weather.

THAT is not why I fly.

4. Safety. This may sound counter-intuitive, but of all the instrument
pilots I know -- and I know a LOT of pilots -- there is only ONE that I
would fly with in the soup. The rest are technically instrument
pilots, but they fly instruments so infrequently that I know -- and
they do, too -- that they are not proficient.

Why is this? Go back and read #3. Even pilots with the rating who fly
often report that maintaining proficiency is difficult, because it
means droning along under the foggles while everyone else is ooo-ing
and ah-ing about the fantastic fall colors. My basic fear is that I
would not maintain my instrument skills at a level high enough to
ensure that our flight safety would actually be enhanced by having the
rating.

In other words, I -- like so many before me -- would spend many hours
(and thousands of dollars) to end up an instrument pilot in name only.

Now, does all this mean that the rating isn't worth getting? Nope.
The instrument training made me a MUCH more precise and better pilot,
and I'm glad I went through it, even though I've not yet finished up.

In closing, getting the rating has long been a goal of mine, not unlike
touring Europe, or teaching myself HTML, or opening a restaurant. When
I get the time to do it right, it will happen, and it, too, will be
checked off my list of "Life Goals", just as I've ticked off all the
others.

I can't dispute your utility assessment (for your location); and whether
instrument flying is fun is a subjective matter (though I agree with Jose
about the visual beauty of flying among clouds). As for time to learn
(especially if you previously got right up to the signoff) and maintaining
proficiency, I think both can be done conveniently and inexpensively by
using MSFS. (That doesn't count for official currency, of course--but
currency can be maintained with just three approaches on each of four days
per year.)

--Gary