Common instruments on small aircraft

Recently, Bart posted:

The fact that weather is a major factor on GA travel, the fact that
once you get to your destination you STILL most likely have to rent a
car, the fact that it's still going to cost more to fly yourself to
your destination than drive or fly commercially.... makes GA
impractical.

A lot of this depends on the individual. I doubt that Jay's family would
agree with you that their aircraft is impractical as transportation. I
don't understand the notion that it is a problem that one is "still most
likely to have to rent a car"; so what? Your notion that it will cost more
to fly oneself to the destination is quite often untrue, unless one's time
is worth little, or if the alternative of flying commercially is
considered (in which case one would still rent a car... so, once again I
don't understand that as a criticism of GA usage).

Weather limitations are greatly over-rated. As others have pointed out,
the inconvenience of waiting out weather can be less than an hour, and
most of the time less than a day. That is not much to be concerned about
if you compare that to having to make connecting flights to take the same
trip commercially. On a recent return from a vacation, we were delayed by
over a day because of this, and we were the lucky ones... others were
delayed for almost a week because all the flights to their destination
were overbooked.

You guys that have the equipment, money, resources and the situation
to make your GA flying practical for transportation - that's great.
But don't fool yourselves into thinking that it's par for the course.

It may not be practical for you, and I certainly wouldn't cite
transportation as the primary reason for GA. I fly more hours in the
vicinity than I do going someplace. OTOH, there are places I wouldn't go
very often if I had to drive because drive time is 5+ hours and I can fly
there in 1.5 hours. So, I can easily make a 1/2 day trip out of something
that would be a 2-day affair.

Neil