Instrument Rating, not needed?

[Meanee]

So, I am a newly minted private pilot, who wants to be a bit better at what I do. So naturally, my next step would be Instrument Rating, I assumed.

Yesterday, my CFI had a small get together. Bunch of his friends came in. Some owners, some renters. And when I asked about IR, nobody is instrument rated. People with over 600 hours are still PPL (not even commercial). One guy has HP/Complex ratings, because his plane is HP and Complex.

I thought that instrument rating is more or less a required rating. In my opinion, it will make me a safer pilot. But looking around, I do not see that people actually have it. Is it some sort of a trend? Is IR at the end not worth it?

 

[Jim Logajan]

A Google search will find various stats on whether an IR makes you a safer pilot; it doesn't appear to be an unequivocal given either way. Perhaps whatever is gained in skill is offset by the higher risk flights that IR pilots take; suggesting some form of risk homeostasis is at play.

Here is an excerpt of one such article:"[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]A statement often heard from flight instructors is that the instrument rating “will make you a better pilot.” Certainly, our data indicates that this rating has some clear benefits both under VMC and IMC conditions. Notably, IFR-rated pilots enjoy a 50% reduction in the Stall/Spin/Loss of Control category under both VMC and IMC conditions when compared with their VFR-rated counterparts. On the other hand, the IFR-rated group got snared by other causes that seem to impact the VFR-rated cohort less often. First and foremost, the 6-fold higher mid-air collision rate under VMC conditions by the former group was obvious. Second, under IMC, following improper procedures leads to deadly consequences for IFR-rated pilots, this presumably reflecting the unforgiving environment.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular] In total (both VMC and IMC accidents), there were 67 and 58 fatal accidents involving VFR-rated and IFR-rated pilots respectively. However, in general aviation, VFR-rated pilots (258,749) outnumber their IFR-rated peers (171,309) (source: AOPA, www.aopa.org/whatsnew/stats/). Correcting for this increased presence of VFR-rated pilots, we calculated 26 fatal accidents per 100,000 VFR-rated and 34 fatal accidents per 100,000 IFR-rated pilots. The slightly higher rate for the IFR-trained pilots did not represent skewing of the data under the more strenuous demands of IMC, since a similar trend was evident under VMC conditions (16 and 21 fatal accidents per 100,000 VFR- and IFR-rated pilots respectively). Likewise, increased exposure of IFR-rated pilots, who generally have higher flight times than their VFR-rated counterparts, is unlikely to be the cause of the increased accident rate for the former group. Thus, for pilots with 200-1000 logged hours, the fatality rate was 9 VFR-rated pilots and 10 IFR-rated pilots per 100,000 pilots with the corresponding rating. Taken together, our findings, albeit with these aircraft, would suggest that while IFR-rated pilots do indeed have a greater control of the aircraft, this rating does not confer a lower fatal accident rate.[/FONT][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]"[/FONT][/FONT]
http://www.swaviator.com/html/issueSO02/Hangar91002.html