Bob,

Interesting & detailed writeup. My thoughts as a low time pilot who just got
his IFR ticket below:

7:00 AM Monday morning. Call FSS to see if the weather is as good as it
was
supposed to be. Some fog at KSMQ (Somerset, NJ) that is supposed to lift,
but the real problem is beyond Harrisburg. Altoona and Johnstown are in
fog, that isn't predicted to burn off for a couple of hours.
SNIP
From the airport, the weather is still IFR at Johnstown, but expected to
lift shortly, so we wait for a bit longer and then depart just before
11:00.

If you had the option of going IFR, would you have been able to depart
earlier?

Trying to make sure I line up on the correct runway, I confess that I am
"unfamiliar" and ask if 27 left is the long runway I can see. Tower
sarcastically tells me 27 left is the one with "L" painted on it.

There's also a localizer on 9R, which you could have tuned and read as a
back course to 27L. Assuming of course the reverse sensing didn't scramble
your egggs even worse, as lord knows it does for plenty of instrument
pilots. Just an idle thought...

Weather over Washington is fine, although we're above a broken layer that
is
not getting any worse, yet, so we press on to Rostraver, and then Latrobe,
listening to AWOS reports up ahead as soon as we can pick them up.
However,
when we get to Latrobe, we can hear from Johnstown that they are still 3
miles and 800 feet. A lunch stop in Latrobe seems appropriate. We drop
through a big hole in the broken layer and land at Latrobe.

This is the part where I always became really uncomfortable. My rule was
that I never went up above anything I wasn't sure of being able to make it
back down through.

Flight Services assures me that the fog in Johnstown should have lifted in
about two hours, so we enjoy a leisurely lunch.

Sounds like it was for the best, but again I'd ask whether IFR capability
would have allowed you to keep the schedule better.

Sad. Are the small town airports going the same way as small town railway
stations did 75 years ago?

For now, yes. If the microjets succeed at hitting their operating cost
targets, however, we could see a major resurgence. When I used to travel a
lot on business, I'd always point out to my boss as we drove two hours from
the major airport to the client site when we passed a small municipal
airport ten miles away. If I only had a faster plane...

it. We level off at 2,000, and find that we can easily get over the ridge
into the second valley. I still have that second airport as an option,
and
it looks like we have at least an 800' gap between the next ridge and the
clouds. More importantly, beyond that next ridge, I can see that the
ridges
get progressively lower, and the weather improves. We cross the second
ridge with a few hundred feet to spare, and set a direct course to
Harrisburg. Not great VFR conditions, but we know it gets better the
farther east we go.

You've flown in this area before, and sound like you have a pretty good grip
on how the weather behaves around there. As a non-local pilot, unfamiliar
with the area, VFR-only, this is not a situation I'd want to be in. A little
bit more fog, haze, virga, etc. and it seems to me like there could be a lot
of doors slamming in your face pretty fast. For me it's not just about what
I can get away with (and I'm speaking here about practical, not legal) but
what I feel comfortable with.

home without too many new gray hairs. Susie points out that it took 7
hours
door to door, and that we could have driven it in 9 hours for a lot less
money. I have no answer to that.

The journey is the destination. When you get up to a 150+kt airplane though
the speed factor starts to really kick in for people for those inclined to
see it as merely transportation.

With Ivan coming
up the coast, we would have been there for four more days had we not gone
when we did. The only thing that made me uncomfortable was flying a long
way on top of a cloud deck that I could not get down through without my
instrument rating. OTOH, I made sure I had plenty of fuel, and a couple
of
option cards to play. I knew that good weather was moving in behind us,
so
I could always turn around if absolutely necessary. An instrument rating
would have helped, since I could have stayed on top, gone around or
through
that high cloud deck, and then descended beyond Harrisburg.

Personally I was never comfortable VFR only in these situations. Up here in
New England the weather is famous for completely ignoring what the
forecasters tell it to do, and I didn't like the idea of having to divert
50-100 miles if things started going downhill. So for me, I probably
wouldn't have taken off with the situation as you describe, VFR-only. Now I
would file IFR, and if things turn out a lot better than expected, just
cancel it in the air.

For now, at my experience level, I see my IR as a tool to recover the
MVFR/MIFR days that we get an awful lot of in the Northeast. Pick any couple
of days and a route of say 100-200 miles, and you'll often find haze, fog,
low clouds, or something getting in the way for some part of the route and
day. Being rated and equipped (and current) gives me more confidence that I
will be able to successfully manage the risks of completing a significantly
larger percentage of flights.

Of course, an instrument ticket is no guarantee of being able to keep a
schedule either, even if you're flying a radar-equipped known-ice beast with
kerosene heaters on the tail. Ratings and equipment simply increase options.
And the point about engine loss is certainly valid. Indeed, there are also
cases where going VFR is safer than going IFR. Everything has its place.

Ultimately I think we all tend to see these things through the prism of our
own prejudices. I liked the idea of mastering instrument flight skills, and
never seriously questioned that I would, sooner or later, get the rating. I
enjoyed the training about as much as I suppose anyone can enjoy that sort
of thing, and think flying an approach in actual conditions is possibly the
coolest thing I've ever done in an airplane. So that colors how I look at
everything, for sure.

Best,
-cwk.