New IFR Currency requirements...!

Travis Marlatte wrote:

This is for currency. If one doesn't fly any real IFR over a six-month
period, then requiring a little enroute flying with the appropriate
transitions at the ends seems reasonable. It is the wording that bothers me.
It seems to imply that currency would include a single flight that entails
all the transitions and enroute time. What if I had an hour of real IFR and
an approach or two and just needed to fill in the gaps?


Those of us who make a living flying (past tense for me ;-) get a whole
lot of actual IFR. Yet, we find ourselves in the sim doing the whole
drill once or twice a year.

I think it is not unreasonable to have a non-commercial pilot show he
can do the full drill on a periodic basis, even though he has a fair
amount of actual IMC time logged recently.

After I retired I did a few ICCs in an approved training device rather
than in an airplane. Those ATD ICCs were done by a couple of very good
CFI-Is. We did the full drill, departure, short en route (tower to
tower Los Angeles Basin routes), hold, arrival, transitions; all of it.

Based on my experience as a commercial pilot and former CFI-I I feel the
benefit to both me and the CFI-I's evaluation of me, was done far bettr
in the ATD.

The real point, though, is successful accomplishment of the full, but
short, "X-Country."