Instrument rating??

"Mark Astley" wrote
Just to give you a data point...

I guess I fall into the low time pilot category at about 250 hours TT.

You do. When you're that low time, a lot of things make a difference
that will be irrelevant at 500+ hours.

My
insurance bill was about $90 lower this year possibly as a result of
attaining the instrument rating. Of course, this may be a break due to TT
rather than an IA, except that I don't think you get a break because of TT
until at least 300 hours.

First off, this varies by insurer but there isn't a single insurer I
know of that treats a 100 hour pilot the same as a 250 hour pilot when
it comes to flying a simple airplane. So don't be so quick to
discount total time - in general, both total time and time in the past
year are more important than ratings.

More to the point, though, continuing training (in whatever form, as
long as it is in your airplane) is attractive to a lot of insurers.
It shows that you are flying regularly, are training regularly, and
are disciplined about your flying. A rating (any rating) acquired in
the past year is generally worth something as long as your rates have
not bottomed out (and yours, at 250 hours, have not).

Still, I didn't get the IA for the insurance. I did it to increase the
usability of my plane. Here in NJ we get a lot of hazy summers and the
occasional scuddy days in fall/spring (ceiling around 2k).

Do you really believe that ceilings of 2000 AGL and visibilities of
3-5 miles require an instrument rating in a Cherokee?

Michael

Mark Astley wrote:

Of course, this may be a break due to TT
rather than an IA, except that I don't think you get a break because of TT
until at least 300 hours.

I spoke to the Cessna insurance people at the AOPA flying at Frederick a few
years ago. They said their first price break is at 210 hours.

George Patterson
Battle, n; A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would
not yield to the tongue.

"Michael" wrote in message
om...
"Mark Astley" wrote
Just to give you a data point...

Still, I didn't get the IA for the insurance. I did it to increase the
usability of my plane. Here in NJ we get a lot of hazy summers and the
occasional scuddy days in fall/spring (ceiling around 2k).

Do you really believe that ceilings of 2000 AGL and visibilities of
3-5 miles require an instrument rating in a Cherokee?

Require? No, of course not, if you're content to get beaten senseless
cruising around down low. A hazy NJ summer can easily be less than 3 miles,
then there's the occasional freak occurence like smoke from Canada blowing
down into your airspace.

mark

Still, I didn't get the IA for the insurance. I did it to increase
the
usability of my plane. Here in NJ we get a lot of hazy summers and
the
occasional scuddy days in fall/spring (ceiling around 2k).

Do you really believe that ceilings of 2000 AGL and visibilities of
3-5 miles require an instrument rating in a Cherokee?

Michael

I do. I'm about half way through my ifr training (about 230 hours total
time over 3 years). My pesonal VFR minimums are 3,500 ovc, 3,000 bkn. I had
to divert once due to weather going from 4,000 bkn to 800 within 20 minutes.
Luckily I was right over an airport when I called ahead to my class C home
base. Fetched the plane the next day.

Even so, once I get the rating, I'm betting my ifr minimums will still be
around the 2k agl mark (2-3 miles visibility). Given the severly blown
practice LOC approach last night under the hood, I need some room. :-) Hard
to tell though. I haven't even had any actual, yet. 1st time may scare my
minimums even higher.

"Mark Astley" wrote
Require? No, of course not, if you're content to get beaten senseless
cruising around down low.

So what you're actually increasing is comfort rather than capability.
Not that there's anything wrong with that - I've been known to file
IFR myself just because it was more convenient or comfortable - but
it's not the same thing as not being able to make it VFR.

A hazy NJ summer can easily be less than 3 miles,

Really? I'm there quite a bit, and I can't recall the last time the
haze made the visibility less than three miles. Not saying it can't
happen, but I don't see it happening much. What I do see a lot is a
tendency to dramatically underestimate visibility.

Whenever I fly with a student in hazy conditions, I always make it a
point to ask him what he thinks the visibility is. Then I point out a
distant but prominent object that I know is further than that, and ask
him how far away he thinks it is. Then we either find it on the map
and fly to it, until he realizes the visibility was a lot better than
what he thought.

In my experience, I've NEVER had a pilot with less than 1000 hours
fail to significantly underestimate the flight visibility in haze.
Just one of those things I've started noticing since I started
teaching.

then there's the occasional freak occurence like smoke from Canada blowing
down into your airspace.

Yeah, that happens. I remember when the smoke from Mexico blew into
Texas. I had about 300 hours then, and I remember thinking how bad it
was, and wondering if I was busting VFR mins. Now that I've racked up
several approaches in 2-4 miles of vis I know that it probably never
got worse than 4 miles. Sure seemed worse at the time though.

Michael

Steven,

My pesonal VFR minimums are 3,500 ovc, 3,000 bkn.


Hmm. Bold statement. I wouldn't get in the air much with that as an
unqualified limit. Some questions that immediately pop up:

What kind of terrain? Where I fly a lot, it is all flat. Goin with a
ceiling of 1000 feet is usualy no problem. That would be different in
hill country, of course.

What is the visibility? Where I fly, great visibility underneath a low
cloud deck is common. No problem flying low in those conditions.

With good visibility and even 2500 feet hills around, I don't see why
you would need 3500 overcast to fly. And I agree to the other poster:
Most people underestimate visibility. 3 miles is REALLY, REALLY low.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

(Michael) wrote in message . com...
"Dennis O'Connor" wrote in
This discussion has had it's silly moments... I will simply note that adding
the instrument rating will result in a decrease in your insurance premium...

That's not generally true at all. It's ONLY true for low time pilots
and for fast cruisers. ..
You only get that discount if you own something
fast - say Mooney/Bonanza/Comanche/Viking and up.

Michael,

Are you sure about that? Do you have some sort of study or
evidence you could point to online?

I don't know what you consider "low time" for the purposes of this
discussion, but DH and I both have between 500 and 1000 hrs TT,
more than 300 hrs in type, do recurrant training (WINGS) every
year. Our insurance quote dropped substantially this year in what
we were told is a generally rising market.

We fly a simple, fixed-gear, fixed-prop plane which is slightly
faster than its 180 HP fixed gear cousins -- but it's no Mooney/
Bonanza/Comanche/Viking.

What's different? I finished my IR last fall.

I've heard a similar story from a fellow owner with a Piper Warrior,
which is even slower, and from the chap across the shadeports with a
Piper Archer.

So it kind of looks to us that at least some insurance companies
think the IR makes a difference. Maybe not for your Tripacer, maybe
not for someone flying a Stinson 108 or a C140, but for ordinary
garden-variety spamcans which were commonly produced as
instrument-capable planes.

Cheers,
Sydney

(Michael) wrote in message . com...
"Mark Astley" wrote
Just to give you a data point...

I guess I fall into the low time pilot category at about 250 hours TT.

You do. When you're that low time, a lot of things make a difference
that will be irrelevant at 500+ hours.

True enough. But at 500+ hrs, it still made a difference to us.

Care to cite the "magic number" of piloting hrs where the IR makes
no difference to insurance rates in simple fixed-gear planes?

Thanks,
Sydney

"Michael" wrote in message
m...
"Mark Astley" wrote
Require? No, of course not, if you're content to get beaten senseless
cruising around down low.

So what you're actually increasing is comfort rather than capability.
Not that there's anything wrong with that - I've been known to file
IFR myself just because it was more convenient or comfortable - but
it's not the same thing as not being able to make it VFR.

I see what you're saying, but I think the line is a bit blurrier. I'm not
going to file if I'm poking around the practice area with ceilings under 2k.
However, since I fly exclusively for pleasure, I'm not going to take a long
x-country cruising down low because I know no one in the plane will be
particularly happy bouncing around for several hours (maybe your passengers
are more tolerant). Before I could file, I had less capability because this
is a flight I wouldn't take. Now at least I have some options.

A hazy NJ summer can easily be less than 3 miles,

snip

In my experience, I've NEVER had a pilot with less than 1000 hours
fail to significantly underestimate the flight visibility in haze.
Just one of those things I've started noticing since I started
teaching.

Fair enough, guess I'll have to get back to you when I break 1000 hours
I imagine I look like a sissy when it comes to x-winds as well (my current
limit is gusts up to 20 on a direct x-wind, I won't go beyond that without
an instructor).

then there's the occasional freak occurence like smoke from Canada
blowing
down into your airspace.

Yeah, that happens. I remember when the smoke from Mexico blew into
Texas. I had about 300 hours then, and I remember thinking how bad it
was, and wondering if I was busting VFR mins. Now that I've racked up
several approaches in 2-4 miles of vis I know that it probably never
got worse than 4 miles. Sure seemed worse at the time though.


I concede that after more experience I may sing a different tune. I WILL
say that scanning for traffic in such conditions is pretty nerve wracking,
but of course filing doesn't get you out of doing that either.

mark

(Michael) wrote in message . com...
The basic difference between flying VFR (at least by visual contact
with the surface - I'm not talking about 'pretend' VFR where you still
have to fly on the gauges and navigate with radios) and flying IFR is
this - when you are VFR, you can see what the weather around you is
doing and bail out when it gets scary. Airports are usually only a
few minutes apart in most of the US, and in a pinch most light singles
can be landed in a field. When you fly IFR, you often can't see the
weather. You have to determine what it's doing by other means, and
this is more complex. IFR flying is NOT for the pilot who isn't good
at figuring out what the weathe is doing. In most cases, this is
something that only develops with experience, so in general IFR flying
is not for the inexperienced pilot. The FAA used to require 200 (or
maybe 250) hours for the instrument rating, and I think that made a
lot of sense as an absolute minimum.

Michael has, IMO, a very valid point here. (in the post below,
"you" and "you're" are intended as general terms not referring
to Michael)

We do both -- fly VFR under the clouds in crud/file IFR and
stay over them.

There's no question in my mind that VFR flight under the clouds
requires a much higher degree of piloting skill and situational
awareness to manage safely. It's tough. It's uncomfortable.
And having a GPS helps, but only somewhat -- the best route is
often not "GPS direct" but along a river to a highway, through
the pass then left through the valley to the airport. Flying
on the centerline of a course directly into a terrain or obstacle
used to be called "the mark of Loran-guided death" now one could
substitute "GPS-guided".

From that POV, filing IFR and getting into a system where the
minimum safe altitudes are mapped out and navigation is easy,
looks much safer.

On the other hand, IFR flight is often deceptively easy. You can
file, pop through a layer into glorious sunshine, and go on
your way fat, dumb, and happy. It's very easy to get lulled into
complacency by how easy and comfortable it is, and stop asking
hard questions: what is the weather enroute? is there space between
the cloud base and terrain where I could maneuver to a survivable
landing if the engine quit? where is the nearest VFR weather where
I could land if my electrical system quit? What's the weather at my
destination and is it honestly within my capabilities for that
approach? What's the freezing level? How does it relate to the
MIAs on my route?

It's tough and uncomfortable to ask those questions when flying a
SE plane IFR. It makes it seem like maybe what you're doing is
no safer, maybe even not as safe, as bucking along in the crappy
vis under the clag. But IFR is safer, everyone "knows" that. It
feels safer. So pilots don't ask.

So then we get these sad accidents where someone flying a C182
crashes from fuel exhaustion on the way to his alternate airport
because he tried 3 ILS to his destination and couldn't make it in,
or where someone has an engine failure over inhospitable terrain
at night, or where someone picks up icing descending through clouds
on approach.

Cheers,
Sydney