IFR just 5.4% of the time

For what it's worth, flying out of KBED (Hanscom Field, near Boston),
my log book shows 31% of my total time in IMC. These flights were
mostly done for business reasons (yeah, and I held board of directors
meetings by looking in a mirror) and so were on a schedule mostly
established before a reliable forcast for the ETD was available.
("Yeah, Jake, I'll fly into Rochester next Tuesday, let's plan on
meeting about 11 that morning").

It's also true that about 10%of those trips were cancelled ("Hey Jake,
there are embedded thunderstorms between here and there, let's
postpone the meeting until tomorrow.")

A further truth: it is a rare cross country flight, and I can't
remember the last nighttime flight, that I did not fly under IFR. It's
simply a LOT easier to do it that way.




On Feb 28, 12:08 pm, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
As I sit on the ground, on a day off, not flying due to (yet more)
ice, I thought I'd share these interesting results with the group...

Pilots are always surprised when I tell them that Mary and I have
traveled the country extensively by light plane for 12 years, all
VFR. While it's true that we have to be flexible, my experience has
been that it is rare, indeed, that we must cancel a flight due to IFR
conditions that we would have flown in our Pathfinder (a Piper
Cherokee 235), even with the rating.

Many people have questioned the validity of our experience, wondering
if we scud-run everywhere, or are simply not telling the truth. Well,
in a strange twist of fate, a friend of mine recently completed a
study of ASOS observations from 2002 - 2004 here in Iowa City. His
primary goal was to determine prevailing wind direction while IFR
conditions existed, but he inadvertently turned up some interesting
data that supports my informal observations.

During that two year period, he looked at ~33,000 recorded hourly
observations at KIOW. Just 1765 of those observations were IFR, or
5.4%.

Now, of course, there were an unknown number of marginal VFR
conditions in the data set, but these results pretty well confirm my
(non-scientific) observation that showed us canceling just a handful
of flights each year due to weather, and a truly tiny set that were
canceled due to "soft IFR" conditions that we would feel safe flying
Atlas in. Most of our IFR weather in Iowa City is due to icing, fog,
or thunderstorms, meaning that we're not about to challenge Mother
Nature in a Piper Spam Can anyway.

What does this mean? A few conclusions:

1. VFR conditions prevail roughly 95% of the time, even here in the
rough-and-tumble Midwest.
2. VFR cross country flying can be safely done, with the right
attitude, even in marginal equipment like most of us fly.
3. Obtaining the instrument rating is an excellent exercise, and makes
you a much more precise (and thus proficient) pilot, but unless you're
moving up to heavier metal, it won't help you much.
4. This explains why just half of all pilots have pursued the
instrument rating, and why a very small percentage of instrument rated
pilots are current or proficient. There simply isn't much need for
it, unless you're flying on a schedule, in rated equipment.

My purpose in sharing this is not to belittle those who have obtained
the instrument rating. On the contrary, I am a much better pilot
thanks to the instrument training I have obtained, and intend to
finish up the rating when we have finished the hotel remodeling.

However, I no long harbor the notion that an IR is going to help us
fly more, or longer, or more regularly -- at least not until we can
afford something like a Pilatus.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:


1. VFR conditions prevail roughly 95% of the time, even here in the
rough-and-tumble Midwest.

Rough and tumble? You were joking, right? The weather in the northeast
is much worse then the midwest.

Matt

After having lived and flown in both regions, I'd say the weather is much
worse in the Midwest. The extremes of temperature are much greater in the
Midwest, and the winds tend to be a lot stronger.

Icing- ever fly over Lake Michigan? Much worse than the lift over the
Adirondacks and Green Mountains. Thunderstorms?- When was the last time New
Hampshire had a tornado?

Subjectively, I'd say the weather in the Midwest is a lot more challenging
than in the Northeast.

On the original thread, having the IFR rating just provides the extra
comfort level- why scud run when you can pop through a few thousand feet of
clouds to CAVU on top?

Besides, doing all of the approaches, especially with the VNAV and LDP
approaches, is fun. Tracking an NDB course outbound with a howling
quartering tail wind can be real fun- then do it at night in IMC with some
turbulence. It's all fun.

Jay Honeck wrote:

As I sit on the ground, on a day off, not flying due to (yet more)
ice, I thought I'd share these interesting results with the group...

Here is my way of looking at it. I've flown 421.2 hours since getting
my instrument rating. Of that, 23.9 was simulated instrument for
training so I'll exclude that. A lot was local flying, but I don't have
any easy way to exclude that so I won't, but that would change the
numbers even further.

I have flown 95.7 hours of actual. So the percentage of my flights that
were in actual is 95.7/397.3 = 24%. And these are mostly flights I
couldn't have made VFR. The percentage would be even higher if I was
counting only my cross country flight time, but that would take a while
to figure. Even so, 24% is a significant increase in dispatch rate.
And trust me, when I was flying on business, it seemed that the bad
weather always occurred on a day I needed to be at a meeting 500 miles away!

So, I think in the northeast your 9% rate is way too low. And it is
probably way too high for the southwest!


Matt

The real bottom line to this is having managed to meet the PTS for the
IR makes you a more proficient pilot ... And while skills need
practice to keep them honed to a razors edge, being more proficient
carries over into better decisions and safer flying overall...
Insurance companies offer a premium discount to the instrument rating
- must be a reason for this...

Bottom line is every pilot should take the training for the IR... Even
if he never uses the rating he will benefit..

denny

Bottom line is every pilot should take the training for the IR... Even
if he never uses the rating he will benefit..

Agree 100%. The training I did in preparation for the IR really made
me a much more precise pilot. I wish I had finished it up, but there
just weren't enough hours in the day, after we bought the hotel.

Again, my only purpose for this thread was to show (by newly-available
statistical analysis) that VFR cross-country flying is easily doable,
and that an instrument rating is not going to allow you to be an "all-
weather" flyer in the planes most of us own and operate.

I think most of us intuitively *knew* all this, but my friend's data
helps us see it more clearly.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On Mar 1, 12:19 pm, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
Bottom line is every pilot should take the training for the IR... Even
if he never uses the rating he will benefit..

Agree 100%. The training I did in preparation for the IR really made
me a much more precise pilot. I wish I had finished it up, but there
just weren't enough hours in the day, after we bought the hotel.

Again, my only purpose for this thread was to show (by newly-available
statistical analysis) that VFR cross-country flying is easily doable,
and that an instrument rating is not going to allow you to be an "all-
weather" flyer in the planes most of us own and operate.

I think most of us intuitively *knew* all this, but my friend's data
helps us see it more clearly.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"


I would concur with your observations. With my instrument students,
sometimes we end up waitng for several weeks to get find suitable IMC
conditions. Most of the time we get ice, thunderstorm or just too
windy. If you look in any pilots logbook, the IMC hours should tell
you something. Most of the pilot I fly with have about 5-10% IMC time,
which roughly corresponds with your ASOS observations. And this is in
the Great Lakes area, which has no shortage of IFR conditions. I used
to live in the desert southwest, where IMC was a rare novelty.

However, I almost always file IFR because it makes life so much
easier. May be I am being too lazy, but I can't imagine flying into
Chicago, Detroit or across the border into Canada without filing IFR.

If you look in any pilots logbook, the IMC hours should tell
you something.

Yes, but you might not hear what it's telling you. I have very little
actual in my book, but part of that is that She Who Must Be Obeyed (who
is actually a real good sport about flying) doesn't particularly like
IMC, and would much prefer waiting a day to go CAVU.

SO, we go CAVU.

Jose
--
Humans are pack animals. Above all things, they have a deep need to
follow something, be it a leader, a creed, or a mob. Whosoever fully
understands this holds the world in his hands.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

I'd have to disagree with at least part of this. I don't deny that a
single station may be IFR only 5% of the time, but I've often
overflown KIOW en route to Des Moines, and have found that weather can
be fine VFR at both ends, while there is often uncomfortable cloud
cover around the Mississippi River. I've had similar experiences
flying up to Michigan - good VFR at both ends, but a choice between
1500 AGL and 10,000 en route to stay clear of clouds.

In addition, I've flown over Lake Michigan in VFR weather but had to
use instruments for lack of any visible horizon only 5 mi offshore.

Flying into Chicago VFR, flight following is almost always terminated
just when you need it most, while under IFR you can receive traffic
advisories in a very active airspace.

What the rating provides is comfort, knowing that in the absence of
Tstorm activity and icing, I don't have to sweat about clouds.

However, I no long harbor the notion that an IR is going to help us
fly more, or longer, or more regularly -- at least not until we can
afford something like a Pilatus.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

You know, my instrument rating doesn't currently help me that much
with my Pilatus being VFR only...

Its great being constantly confused with PC-12s by ATC though. I think
my Vne is actually higher than their's, but the only way I'd ever
outrun a PC-12 is if we were both aimed straight at the ground...

Jay, I will give you an alternate piece of data on IFR flight: Out of
my long XC flights (400nm+) prior to buying the Pilatus (VFR only) I
have had to fly in IMC at some point on more than 75% of them. After
purchasing a VFR only aircraft, I have had to land and wait out
weather on 2 out of 5 long XC flights, where I could have easily
continued non-stop if the plane was equipped for IFR.

The issue I see with the way you calculated the % of time that the
weather is IMC, is that on a cross country flight you need a constant
path of VMC weather from departure to destination in order to make the
flight. I would be really interested to find out what the results
would change to, if your friend did a search on the number of days
that every ASOS station from IOW to Cincinnati or Detroit was showing
VFR. That would give a much better read on the percent of days that it
is possible to do a cross country under VFR.

Thanks,
Eric Bartsch
1959 Pilatus P-3 A-848
http://www.hometown.aol.com/bartscher/P3A848.html