In article ,
Jose wrote:

I
think what makes sense here is "a full stop landing at an airport 50 miles
from your point of departure", although I suppose Alaska bush pilots might
object to having their destination limited to an airport.

Why does that make sensse here? This is for instrument currency;
landings are not part of it, neither is a full stop, and fifty miles is
arbitrary.

A full stop landing damn well is part of instrument flying. The whole
point of an instrument flight is to get to another airport when the weather
is bad.

I can't tell you how many approaches I watch people make where they
couldn't possible land at the end. When I ask them how the approach went,
I get back, "I think it went pretty well". Then I ask them if they could
have landed, and they say something like, "Well, no, because I was still at
700 AGL over the threshold and doing 90 kts".

I suppose 50 miles is somewhat arbitrary, but it seems to me that the whole
point here is to get people away from their familiar home environment. If
taking two 50 mile flights twice a year is a hardship, I don't understand
what people are doing with their ratings.

What makes sense to me (that the FAA is aiming for) is that they want
you to transition from the departure mindset to a cruise mindset to an
arrival mindset, to an actual approach.

Yeah, right. And it's kind of hard to do that in much less than 50 miles.
On any kind of real IFR flight with weather that's at all marginal, one of
the first things I do once I get settled into cruise is call up flight
watch and get an update on weather along my route. There's neither time
nor reason to do that on a 25 mile hop to the next airport over.

Of course, you could just turn on the A/P and read a magazine during the
cruise portion. You can lead a pilot to currency, but you can't make him
actually learn anything while doing it.