Thank you Awkward, it does explain things well. Now in my after life, since the end of my flying days and the stage of well past ripeness, I am left with much time and inclination to reflect on many memories of those days. There were many sad occasions, one of which was a UK PPL for whom along with the spanking brand new PA46 came an FAA IR and not so long thereafter came the grief of a sudden encounter with a mountain peak in VMC whilst out on a VFR FP. It was then discovered by all and sundry that he had 400 hrs tt including his initial training, duals and IMC. Nothing was said or found about his instrument time. Such an important thing I thought this so called instrument time was.
Hi Chronus, I'm sure you didn't mean to imply that he got his FAA IR without doing the required training...you make it read like it was in the back page of the owner's manual!....In fact during the 80s after a spate of accidents the FAA investigated and basically exonerated the aircraft and recommended type specific training (but fell short of mandating it). In any case, as is often the case, the insurance industry made sure that minimum hours and minimum recurrency training be undertaken by pilots..... You can't realistically just get in one of these aircraft and fly it...especially in Europe where insurance is a legal requirement.....
Have a read of this if you're interested:
http://www.mmopa.com/gallery/234_Tra...A46_Pilots.pdf