Philosophical question on owning & IFR rating

On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 20:56:31 GMT, kontiki
wrote:

Ben Jackson wrote:
I'm not so sure about that. I passed a lot of insurance milestones
in my first year of ownership (including getting my instrument rating
and 100 make&model, retract, etc) and my insurance only went down about
10%. It will take years to make back the cost of the IR, but that's not
why I did it!


Well... I wonder what your premium what have been initially had you
purchased the plane/policy initially having the rating Vs. not having
the rating? There are different forces at work when negotiating for
a policy having an instrument rating along with "X" number of PIC hours
going in Vs. a PPL VFR only. Expecting "Y" amount of $$ reduction on
your policy premium after getting the rating is not written into the
contract.

Its a matter of pay me now or pay me more later.. its all money...
better to spend it on training initally than pay for higher premiums
and have less $$ for training and/or flying later.

I had the same experience as Ben. My broker circulates new quotes
with my latest pilot data each year (TT, Time in type, ratings). As
long as the company has a good rating, I go wherever the rate is
cheapest. When I renewed in Spring 2002 after getting my IFR my price
dropped about 5%. Had I stayed VFR only, I believe that it would have
risen about 10% given the effects of 9/11 on GA insurance. So a gross
savings of about 15%.

-Nathan

On 27-Aug-2004, (Ben Jackson) wrote:

I'm not so sure about that. I passed a lot of insurance milestones
in my first year of ownership (including getting my instrument rating
and 100 make&model, retract, etc) and my insurance only went down about
10%. It will take years to make back the cost of the IR, but that's not
why I did it!


I think it depends to a large extent on the make/model involved. For simple
airplanes like a C-172, having an IR probably will not have much impact on
insurance rates. But on a complex, high performance plane the savings could
be substantial. This is understandable considering the relative risk: A
VFR-only pilot will be much safer scud-running in marginal VFR conditions in
a 172 than in a Bonanza.

I've been IFR rated for 30 years, but when two pilots who had not quite
finished their UFR training became partners in my Arrow, insurance went up
by about $600/year. Went back down after they got their ratings.

Getting an IR isn't cheap, but unless you fly exclusively in some place like
Arizona or Florida, it is pretty much a necessity for extracting real
transportation value (as opposed to just recreation) from an airplane.
--
-Elliott Drucker

wrote:
[snip]
Getting an IR isn't cheap, but unless you fly exclusively in some
place like
Arizona or Florida, it is pretty much a necessity for extracting real
transportation value (as opposed to just recreation) from an airplane.

Yep. To say, as some have, that the rating is not worth having for most
GA pilots ignores the most important criterion of flying: what do you
use the airplane for? If you use an airplane to travel, how useful is
it if you have to accept regular postponements for weather?

As soon as I got my PP certificate, it became obvious to me that flying
to Houston every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas was going to
*require* me to have the instrument rating. Otherwise, I could expect
to skip some trips or get stuck at Mom's house on occasion.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

kontiki wrote:

With respect to the weather conditions in North Carolina...
that doesn't matter much for IR training... in fact you will have
the opportunity for more "actual" hours which will benefit you
in the long run. Weather isn't as much of an impediment for an
IR rating as it is for a PPL rating.


I wasn't mentioning weather here as an impediment to the IFR rating so
much as a factor in determining the value of getting one.

In article ,
TTA Cherokee Driver wrote:
So I've been thinking of buying a plane for the sole purpose of
improving my availability & flexibility.

I think of ownership and my IFR rating as both giving me flexibility in
scheduling. Here's an example:

Last week we decided on Monday night that we'd like to go to Canada for
a 3 day weekend. Renting an airplane for 3 days on such short notice
would have probably been impossible. Heck, it was short notice just to
get up-to-date Canadian charts!

On the other hand, while we arrived in beautiful weather, a storm front
moved through on Saturday (while we were in a museum and left multiple
layers of scattered to overcast clouds all along the route of my return
flight. I was able to file, get on top without even penetrating a cloud
and descend through the overcast at home. Could I have gotten home VFR?
Yes, based on what I observed enroute. It sure wasn't clear from the
weather briefing. I probably would have gone underneath, and that would
have meant a low overwater leg.

As a VFR pilot I would have spent most of my last day (or the next day,
having stayed another night) obsessing over the return flight -- probably
at the airport, so I'd be ready to take advantage of a window of
opportunity. At least as a VFR-only owner there wouldn't be a club or
FBO pestering you to return the plane.

Since this is a philosophical discussion, assume if I buy on my own I
will have to buy a VFR airplane to get a decent one that's affordable.

I think this part of your question is a false dilemma. "IFR capable"
is not a yes/no attribute. It's a continuum from aircraft with no
electrical system or gyro instruments to transport jets with redundant
FMS computers. In any airplane you're likely to buy, a VOR w/glideslope
can be installed for a few thousand dollars and the pitot/static check
can be done for a few hundred. Peanuts compared to the annual cost of
ownership.

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/

TTA Cherokee Driver wrote
So I've been thinking of buying a plane for the sole purpose of
improving my availability & flexibility.

Which is indeed the sole purpose. If you're in a club that's a good
deal, you won't come out ahead financially by owning.

Since this is a philosophical discussion, assume if I buy on my own I
will have to buy a VFR airplane to get a decent one that's affordable.

The difference between a VFR airplane and a minimal-IFR one is often
small, but OK.

If I buy a VFR airplane that would rule out getting an instrument rating
because I'm obviously not going to rent airplanes for over 40 hours of
IFR training if I just bought one.

Well, if your VFR airplane has a gyro panel and a VOR (and most do)
you could probably do most of your training in it, and just rent
something for about 10 hours. But what would you do with an
instrument rating owning a VFR-only airplane?

I'd like to hear people's thoughts on having the hypothetical choice of
getting an IFR rating while continuing to rent, versus buying and
committing to being VFR-only for the forseeable future.

I think an instrument rating for a renter pilot is a bad joke. Most
rentals are not maintained and equipped well enough to be reasonable
choices for flying IFR in most non-VFR weather. Most renter pilots
don't even fly enough to maintain VFR proficiency, never mind IFR
proficiency, and the problems you describe are part of the reason. To
me, this is a no-brainer. Buy the VFR airplane.

Realize that the number of times you will be able to complete the trip
in a typical club/rental airplane with the instrument rating when you
couldn't do it without will be fairly small - much smaller than the
number of times you will be able to complete the trip by adjusting the
schedule a bit with your own airplane when you can't do the same with
a rental/club airplane. You will fly a lot more as a VFR owner than
you will as an IFR renter.

Instrument ratings for pilots of light singles are WAY overrated.
Think back to all trips you cancelled because of weather. How many of
them could you have completed with an instrument rating? Not the ones
in winter, because now you're flying in clouds that are subfreezing
and can leave you with a load of ice any time with no way to get rid
of it, unless your club has a plane with boots or at least a big
engine. Not the ones where there are thunderstorms hiding in those
clouds, because you have no way of knowing where those storms are
unless your club has a plane with spherics. And if the clouds are
really low, how are you going to fare if that engine decides to quit?

There is a reason that the vast majority of instrument rated private
pilots don't stay instrument current - it's just not very useful.

Michael

Respectfully Disagree.
We fly about 1x per week, about 250 hrs/year on business trips in an
Mooney.
Average number of flights per year cancelled due to icing: 2-3.
Typical layer is thin stratus. We can rent a booted C210/C310 if
absolutely necessary.
As to Tstorms, there have been a lot of days/nights using eyeballs and
the simple WX900 plus Treo with internet Nexrad, we'll beat often the
airlines. They get backed up; we wait a couple of hours and launch
behind the front.
As to low ceilings...in the Midwest we stay up high for cruise, near
airports typically know places to land. You know on average, I'll see
IFR ceilings on 1/20 of flights.
Truth be told, 80% of our flying is VFR with flight following.
Sometimes don't get enough approaches in. Half of that, I'd sweat out
the forecasts if I was VFR only and VFR equipped only. Is (the IR)
useful.......you betcha. If you regularly need to get over mountains
or vast cold water...that's another story.



Instrument ratings for pilots of light singles are WAY overrated.
Think back to all trips you cancelled because of weather. How many of
them could you have completed with an instrument rating? Not the ones
in winter, because now you're flying in clouds that are subfreezing
and can leave you with a load of ice any time with no way to get rid
of it, unless your club has a plane with boots or at least a big
engine. Not the ones where there are thunderstorms hiding in those
clouds, because you have no way of knowing where those storms are
unless your club has a plane with spherics. And if the clouds are
really low, how are you going to fare if that engine decides to quit?

There is a reason that the vast majority of instrument rated private
pilots don't stay instrument current - it's just not very useful.

Michael

There is a reason that the vast majority of instrument rated private
pilots don't stay instrument current - it's just not very useful.


This is just plain nonsense. That they do not *choose* to use it does not make
it "not useful".


www.Rosspilot.com

There is a reason that the vast majority of instrument rated private
pilots don't stay instrument current - it's just not very useful.



This is just plain nonsense. That they do not *choose* to use it does not make
it "not useful".


Yes, I'd like to know where those "statistics" came from. I make a diligent
effort to maintain my IFR currency (over and above the minimum) and file IFR
on about half of the flights I make in my airplane.

If I were not going to bother staying IFR current then I don't think I'd
bother getting the rating after all.

(Michael) wrote

There is a reason that the vast majority of instrument rated private
pilots don't stay instrument current - it's just not very useful.

Agreed. I am an instrument-rated but not instrument-current pilot.
This is so for the reason you say, and also because I don't have
sufficient confidence in my equipment or abilities to feel safe flying
my plane in any but the easiest IMC. The vacuum pump in my Skyhawk
went belly up just like that a couple years ago while flying VFR. No
warning. No nothing. Just poof. Yeah they teach you partial-panel
procedures as part of your IFR training. But I just don't think I'm
good enough, or don't have the time/money to get good enough, to feel
comfortable handling partial-panel in real IMC.

The new Cessnas have dual vacuums, which I think is an excellent
safety feature.

Jim Rosinski
N3825Q