Moving up to larger, more capable, aircraft can be intimidating, but airplanes are airplanes and some simple truths about them always hold true. The rules of physics still apply, and the intensity of their application is still independent of how many little old ladies you helped across the street last year or how much time you donated to local charities. If you've been flying "trainers," you're used to a fairly tight performance envelope. As you move up, and performance grows, so too (usually) does the performance envelope. More capable aircraft often have a wider range of behavior consistent with their expanded performance envelope. Some attention to details will help.

I'm really not trying to be an old-fogey about this, but I guess I can't help myself. My flight school has just purchased 25 brand new airplanes and each one has a fully IFR capable GPS moving map system. The systems are wonderful, and I should be happy that students will have a very hard time ever getting lost again. I should be happy that calculating an in-flight intercept angle on a vectored NDB approach is a thing of the past. I should be excited that holding patterns are now drawn out for us, but I still have to pause and reflect on what we're giving up.

Pilots have enough problems in the dynamic flight environment without making things worse on themselves. But sometimes pilots impose unnecessary distractions on themselves that compound and aggravate an already challenging situation.

Learning to fly is something very few people ever do, and we all take pride in our own aviation achievements. As our skills expand, along with it, so does our life. It becomes part of what we do, who we are, and what we come to take for granted. And it's only human nature that such a pre-selected group of goal-driven individuals would also want to continue to improve their tribal standing.