Les Abend is a well-trained airline pilot who gets comprehensive recurrent training, who is bound by extensive government and company regulations, and who never flies his Boeing without a well-qualified second pilot and without concurrence of a dispatch system. It goes without saying that the capabilities of his airplane outstrip what most of us fly by a considerable margin. He also flies as many hours per year as five or 10 general aviation pilots.
What Les does with his airplane is exactly the same thing that a private pilot with a new instrument rating does all by himself, with none of the extensive backups or the airplane performance that Les has. The private pilot often doesn’t fly a lot, maybe once or twice a month, and he had better have a good job or business if he is to afford IFR flying.
