Re: Expect to keep a closer eye on the weather, Capital Comments, Sept. 23: I, for one, hope NTSB does not manage to make it mandatory to demonstrate ability to fly safely on instruments every BFR. It would be a totally impractical waste of time for me to even try to bone up for this one. One size does not fit all.
Neither of the two planes I fly regularly, have any instruments whatever for blind flying. Where I live, there are no navaids at all, and it is a $150-plus fuel bill — let along the cost of a hotel, meals, car rental, etc. — to even fly to where there are any. The best advice about flying instruments I ever heard was “If you do not fly the gauges a lot, then do not do it at all.”
I got my instrument rating about 47 years ago. Over 52 years of flying, including nine coast-to-coast runs and over 20 runs to/from Alaska, I have flown 6,500 hours with no occasion whatever to use it or practice it or could have used it. I just heeded the advice of experience quoted above.
I would resent being required to go practice what would be unsafe flying for my situation.
Jim Edwards
McCarthy, Alaska