Aspen Arrival Gone Macho

This flight was off to a bad start before the wheels even left the ground... Its always easy to say something like this would never happen to you, but I have read many accident reports that are similar to this one in many ways. This leads me to believe that this situation is harder to overcome then it may seem. The first thing I noticed was the casual nature about the flight; the passengers didn't show up on time, and then made the flight even later because they were taking in the parking lot? It would make more sense if they were going on a scenic ride a in little piston plane. I think the pilot and/or dispatcher should have been much more professional, and strict at that point. The passengers should have been notified ahead of time about the seriousness of getting the plane off the ground in time.
Bringing a passenger into the cockpit was another big mistake. Im sure this only added to an already stressful situation. Its hard to tell from the article, but a macho pilot may have their hazardous attitude amplified with a person in the cockpit who isn't a pilot.
All this added up to an unusual flight, but it could all have been saved had the pilot stuck to the instrunment regulations. Had they gone missed at mininmuns, like the planes in front of them, they could have safetly diverted to their alternate.
If I were in this situation, and if the status of my job relied on this one flight, Im not sure what I would do. Of course I would say I would just stick to the regulations, and I would have gone missed when the runway was not in sight. But, having the possibility of being fired over something like that would definitely add a lot of pressure, and I can understand why the pilots tried to go down a little farther and pop out. On the other hand, working for an outfit that will terminate a pilot for diverting in a situation like this doesn't sound like a productive, fun place to work.

Single Pilot IFR

If I were given the chance to fly SPIFR tomorrow I would have to gracious delcine. I am not instrument current, nor do I have the experience to take an IPC and feel confident right away. I think that if I were to spend some time brushing up on my instruments I would choose to go SPIFR, depending on the situation. I was lucky enough to get a little bit of actual experience during my IFR training. This was maybe only an hour total, but it was the ice breaker I needed to get the feeling of being in clouds, and overcome the fear from the unknown. So, given the proper conditions, I think I would actually enjoy SPIFR. At my current level I would not venture into any icing, or even potential icing conditions. But being in harmless clouds sounds pretty fun.

There were lots of good tips throughout the article. A small one I liked, and think would be useful, is to put your finger on your altitude indicator within 500 of your assigned altitude. I have blown through assigned altitude myself, especially when descending for thousands of feet.

I did all my instrument training in the archer, so I never had the luxury of instrument flying with autopilot. I think having autopilot would be a great tool to help manage the workload, espically for a newer instrunment pilot.