Philosophical question on owning & IFR rating

"Michael" wrote:

Ok . . . all IFR is *not* conducted in subfreezing weather.

OK, so how much IFR in IMC involves neither subfreezing weather nor
T-storms? In my experience, relatively little.

Virtually all the IMC I have flown has involved neither, unless you want
to be very liberal about the meaning of "involves."

You seem hell-bent on making the argument that all IFR exceeds the
capacity of
a light single.

It's simply nonsense. You have to know your aircraft's limitations,
and flight
plan properly. Exercizing the "no-go" decision is a big part of
having the
Instrument Rating.

But the issue here is how often the weather is beyond the capacity of
a typical light single VFR yet not beyond the capacity of the same
airplane IFR. I argue that it's relatively rare to have such weather.

Can't agree with you there. I have found it relatively common on the
central Gulf Coast, fall through spring. Most of my trips are morning
departures; in winter both origin and destination airports are often IFR
or very untrustworthy VFR. This weather usually consists of fog or a
low overcast that contains no icing or convective threats.

Even thogh I frequently encounter IMC, my actual IMC time is quite low;
I spend little time enroute in clouds. That's not because I avoid
flying on days when it's solid from 1,500 to 15,000, but because such
days are rare down here. Most of my IMC time is climbing, descending
and approaches. In those circumstances, ice and CBs have seldom been
issues for me, and the instrument rating has been quite useful.

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM