that it triggered my little "SP IFR is not all that difficult" speech
I'm with you on that one. I can relate an anecdote at my own expense on this subject.
For reasons not quite understood, I was lucky enough to get into airlines without any I/F background - to put this in perspective, my intake mates all had thousands of hours GA SP IFR. After three years on the Fokker, and while moving onto the Electra, I decided I ought to pick up a Class One rating.
Off I go to MB to discuss the matter with Rick Tate and John Lindsay, whom I knew reasonably well from my ANR 40 work. With straight faces, albeit with impish grins, they suggested that I go do a little bit of SP practice and then come back to do the test.
Sounded straight forward enough to me at the time.
So I co-opted a good mate to give me some on the quiet practice. First trip out was in an Aztruck on a dirty, dark, rough as guts night from EN up to MNG or somewhere similar and back. While he sat in the other seat (laughing his silly head off while making sure I wasn't going to kill both of us) I was sweating and cursing while trying to keep the aircraft right side up and get from A to B (no autopilot, raw data .. usual GA stuff). To cut a long story short, we eventually got back to EN in one piece and, over a cup of coffee, I observed something along the lines of "might need a tad more practice than I anticipated" .. a very quick lesson for me in how much more the workload is SP when compared to 2-/3-crew. Finished the rating a month or two later after a few practice flights and greatly appreciated the learning experience.
"SP IFR is not all that difficult"
The only folk who might make (such a silly) statement are folk who have never flown SP IFR. My admiration for the day-in-day-out GA SP guys skyrocketed as a result of the exercise.