Instrument rating??

There are a lot of older pilots who would agree with your friend. You run
into them a lot on rec.aviation.ifr and rec.aviation.piloting.

You could use the same logic for learning to fly in the first place: if you
are not going to stay current and fly a lot then it is not worth it and may
even be dangerous. Taken to extreme, the argument can be made that if you
never learn to fly then you will probably never die piloting an airplane.

A lot of the pilots who die (perhaps even most of them) flying VFR into IMC
conditions have instrument ratings. Maybe they were overconfident, rusty, or
some combination of the two.

The answer to that, of course, is to get your instrument rating and stay
current. Don't tackle weather that neither you nor your equipment are
prepared to handle. Use common sense, and getting an instrument rating will
make you a better and safer pilot. If you have no common sense, then it just
gives you one more way to kill yourself.

So, yeah, your friend is full of it.

"Paul Folbrecht" wrote in message
ink.net...
I had always planned on getting my instrument rating- within the next
year, probably. But last weekend I had a chat with someone who really
got me thinking about it.

SNIP!

Thoughts on this??

I'm maybe half-way through my instrument training...
Before I started, I was a damned good pilot......

Now, I'm a better one.......

Your friend needs to find, yourself excepted, a better crowd to run in.

"Paul Folbrecht" wrote:
Thoughts on this??

Like any load of bulls..., your friend's advice has an ounce of truth in
it. If you get the rating and attempt to use it only once in a great
while, it can get you into trouble. It is possible to remain legally
current but not proficient.

Nevertheless, he's still handing you a load of crap. Three times a week?
Nuts. There is no hard number of hours that every pilot will require in
order to stay competent in the clouds. Be honest with yourself and get
enough time so that you *know* you can trust your skills when you need
them.

I am glad I got the rating: it has added tremendously to the utility and
satisfaction I get from flying.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM
(remove pants to reply by email)

"Paul Folbrecht" wrote in message
ink.net...

This guy is a friend of a friend and is a retired 20,000 hour ATP.
Retired in the 80s flying 707s and I forget what else. Instructed in
Cubs for years. (Guy has nine count 'em nine engine failures in Cubs!
Two inside 20 minutes once!)

What an engine failure has to do with an IR is rather puzzling.


So, this is what he told me: unless I'm going to be flying 3 times/week
at least, getting my instrument ticket is a waste and possibly dangerous
as well. He thinks I'll be more likely to end up dead with it than
without it. (Logic being, obviously, that the ticket will give me such
a sense of security that I won't be afraid of hard IMC even when I'm not
current enough to handle it.)

While ANY skill must be maintained, you're more likely to fly into IMC than
have an engine failure. Then, too, how much more COULD you fly if you could
cast off during IMC rather than waiting for VMC? If you have no IR and don't
maintain your basic flying skills, you're asking for trouble that way as
well.

Last spring I returned to flying after more than a dozen years on the
ground. Even through I had nearly 2000 hours (1976-1991) I took a damn long
time getting back into things (lots of right seat time) before I felt
comfortable and proficient.

The question I'd ask is: What is your current flying profile (business or
just pleasure) and what changes do you anticipate? I'd sure consider taking
the lessons just to have a better sense of handling the aircraft, but will
you really make use of an IR? Would you be willing to expend the time and
money to stay current? Can you're flying profile justifiy the expense?

Thoughts on this??

As John Deakin (32,000 hours) said in one of his articles :

"Over 32,000 hours." Well, yeah, I've watched in fascination over 40
years of professional flying, as that total has grown to a number
that surprises even me, particularly in light of some of the dumb things
I've done. But, consider; 747 time accounts for well over half of
it, and since the 747 is almost exclusively a very long range
aircraft with supplemented or double crews, several thousand of those hours
were spent sleeping in the crew bunk, and more than a few in the
seat, peacefully snoozing on duty (which I encourage on long flights,
preferably one at a time!) Many thousands more were spent in the
cockpit, boring along (and bored) at FL370, on 12 and 14-hour flights,
above most of the weather. More to the point, since there are so few
takeoffs and landings, by the time the other pilots get their share,
I'm lucky to get 2 takeoffs, and 2 landings per month. That's 24 per year,
for 25 years, for about 300, total. Ok, maybe 500, because some of that time
was on short-range flights of nine hours, or less, with a "normal" crew.
Folks, this is not a lot of experience, relative to the total time!

If the guy retired that long ago, it seems he's to the point of life where
he's become very cynical. Number of hours means relatively little.

Tom Sixkiller wrote:

The question I'd ask is: What is your current flying profile (business or
just pleasure) and what changes do you anticipate? I'd sure consider taking
the lessons just to have a better sense of handling the aircraft, but will
you really make use of an IR? Would you be willing to expend the time and
money to stay current? Can you're flying profile justifiy the expense?


Those are the issues that have pretty much convinced me to stay VFR.

I bought into the notion back in the late 80s that the rating would
enable more utility from my airplane, so I got the rating.

After several years of struggling to round up safety pilots so I could
stay current, mentally treating even all my solo VFR flights from an
instrument perspective to the point that every flight was for
proficiency, and none were just to be enjoyed, and keeping up with all
the added costs for current chart/plate subscriptions and airplane
certifications, I finally came to the realization that, hey, I don't fly
for business, there's never a flight that can't be postponed for
weather, and, most important of all, if the weather's crummy, I don't
enjoy the flying much anyway - so I decided not to do it anymore.

The rating will make you a better pilot, no question, and I'm not sorry
I got mine. I just can no longer personally justify jumping through all
the hoops to stay current and use it.

My 2c... your friend is exaggerating quite a lot, but what he says
isn't completely unfounded either. I would say that to stay safe you
need to do a lot more than the FARs say (one approach every
month on average). Personally I try to get out whenever we have
bad (but not icing or convective) weather for some actual time,
and I do recurrent training with an instructor less often than I'd
like but still every couple of months. I feel comfortable doing
an ILS to minimums or flying through the odd cold front (though
I'm always glad when *that* is over).

So imho an IR is something you have to work harder at keeping
non-rusty than for VFR.

John

"Paul Folbrecht" wrote in message
ink.net...
I had always planned on getting my instrument rating- within the next
year, probably. But last weekend I had a chat with someone who really
got me thinking about it.

This guy is a friend of a friend and is a retired 20,000 hour ATP.
Retired in the 80s flying 707s and I forget what else. Instructed in
Cubs for years. (Guy has nine count 'em nine engine failures in Cubs!
Two inside 20 minutes once!)

So, this is what he told me: unless I'm going to be flying 3 times/week
at least, getting my instrument ticket is a waste and possibly dangerous
as well. He thinks I'll be more likely to end up dead with it than
without it. (Logic being, obviously, that the ticket will give me such
a sense of security that I won't be afraid of hard IMC even when I'm not
current enough to handle it.)

Thoughts on this??

Thanks for all the feedback. The common theme is obvious: just know
your limitations, which should go without saying anyway!

I'll still be planning on that ticket. Whether or not I go for it some
time is relevant to me at the moment because I'm looking at the purchase
of a C150 or 152 and need to decide if I need IFR cert.

In article k.net, Paul
Folbrecht wrote:

Thanks for all the feedback. The common theme is obvious: just know
your limitations, which should go without saying anyway!

I'll still be planning on that ticket. Whether or not I go for it some
time is relevant to me at the moment because I'm looking at the purchase
of a C150 or 152 and need to decide if I need IFR cert

Having an instrument rating helps to reduce insurance costs. As your friend
stated you must be current, having an instrument rating does not make you an
instrument pilot. If you have poor judgement getting the instrument rating
isn't going to change the outcome, it'll just happen sooner perhaps. G

--
Dale L. Falk


There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing
as simply messing around with airplanes.
http://home.gci.net/~sncdfalk/flying.html

Paul Folbrecht wrote
Thanks for all the feedback. The common theme is obvious: just know
your limitations, which should go without saying anyway!

Just realize that "knowing your limitations" will usually mean
limiting your use of the instrument rating to conditions that you
could have legally flown VFR. The moment you start using your
instrument rating to fly in weather that isn't legally flyable VFR,
you need to be thinking real hard about what you are doing.

There is a lot of truth to what your friend said.

I get a lot of questions about getting an instrument rating from a lot
of low time pilots. I'm a practicing CFII; these are all potential
customers. I try to talk most of them out of it.

It's not that an instrument rating is inherently bad. No training is
ever bad. If nothing else, you will spend 40 hours flying in a
structured, goal-oriented environment. On top of that, you're
guaranteed to learn SOMETHING about IFR flying.

The problem is this - if you're not flying 2-3 times a week, that
instrument rating is going to come at the cost of something else. If
all it replaces is a bunch of $100 hamburger runs under blue skies and
over familiar territory, then no great loss. But if time and money
are limited, there are lots of things you could do that would be a
better use of limited resources to make you a better, safer, and more
capable pilot.

You could take some training in flying low VFR. If you consider XC
flight over relatively flat terrain with 1000 ft ceilings to be scary
and not doable under VFR, then I assure you that such training will do
far more for your ability to get where you want to go when you want to
get there in a light single than an instrument rating ever will. You
could fly a taildragger or a glider, you could do aerobatics or
formation flying, or you could make cross country mean something and
cross the country.

I'll still be planning on that ticket. Whether or not I go for it some
time is relevant to me at the moment because I'm looking at the purchase
of a C150 or 152 and need to decide if I need IFR cert.

You might consider a Tomahawk instead. I'm seeing a lot of low time
IFR Tomahawks out there in the $20K range. They're not quite as good
a soft/rough field airplane as a C-150, but they are better planes in
every other respect.

Michael

Here's my two cents...... Wait on the instrument rating.... Go out and fly
to and visit as many airports and their $100 hamburger opportunities as much
as you can. Go out and enjoy that PP-ASEL ticket! For the instrument
rating you will need a LOT of drive and determination... IMHO, I think it
helps to go out there and get lots of flying in (which will improve,,,
hopefully,,,, your flying when you are ready to start the instrument
ticket),,, then when the drive for the new challenge and learning
opportunity rears its' head... go for it!

--
--
=-----
Good Flights!

Cecil
PP-ASEL
Student-IASEL

Check out my personal flying adventures from my first flight to the
checkride AND the continuing adventures beyond!
Complete with pictures and text at: www.bayareapilot.com

"I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery -

"We who fly, do so for the love of flying. We are alive in the air with
this miracle that lies in our hands and beneath our feet"
- Cecil Day Lewis -
"Paul Folbrecht" wrote in message
hlink.net...
Thanks for all the feedback. The common theme is obvious: just know
your limitations, which should go without saying anyway!

I'll still be planning on that ticket. Whether or not I go for it some
time is relevant to me at the moment because I'm looking at the purchase
of a C150 or 152 and need to decide if I need IFR cert.