I know very few instrument rated pilots, but my husband is one of
them. He would absolutely disagree that insrument flight is more
difficult than vfr after one gains some experience. What can be
easier, he says, than flying somewhere, flying an approach, looking up
and finding the airport right where it should be.

The others I know, who use their airplanes mostly for business travel,
feel the same way, Nearly all of them file an instrument flight plan
for any flight more than a short distance. Here in the east (NC) about
a third of his hours are under IMC -- except lately, we NEED rain --
and he wouldn't dream of an afterdusk flight not under IFR.

It would be interesting to see of other more experienced pilots feel
that a newly minted rating guy will be at the top of his or her game.
In fact, long ago, newly rated pilots were encouraged to put a comment
on their flight plan "low time IFR". Maybe it's a lot different now.



On Oct 11, 10:32 am, "Mike Isaksen" wrote:
Larry Dighera wrote:
And remember, you will probably never be better prepared for IMC
operations than you are at this point.
"Tina" wrote in message ...
He may be legal to fly in IMC, but wait until he has a couple of
hundred hours of actual before thinking he's ready for hard intrument
conditions.

While I agree that no newly minted ifr pilot should jump into "hard"
instument conditions, very few instrument rated pilots get to a level of
"couple hundred hours of actual" while remaining in part 91 operations. And
almost every pilot I know planning any IMC reaches for the autopilot on
climbout. It's just too much work hand flying, processing the paperwork, and
keeping a conversation going with a chatty passenger.
I think what Larry ment is that the pilot's hand flying skills are probably
at the top of his game. I hope that any diminishing skills will be suffently
supplimented by experience, so to never to fall beyond the crossover point
of the old "skill vs confidence" chart.