It can be of use for student pilots learning to learn to fly in affordable airplanes such as Jodels or Piper Cubs, and it is of use to people who fly just for the fun of it, i.e. not using the aircraft as a means of transportation.
Examples abound, going from say ULs to aerobatic aircraft, oldtimers, hang gliders, etc.
Strangely enough, some people do enjoy the flying in itself, the amazing sensation, the ever changing view, the machine obeying to one’s actions, in short the magic of flight.
Well on the cub we have a very simple set of instruments:
There is nothing more than what you can see on this picture.
I agree that I would not want to end up IMC with it! But on the day of that picture the chances of that were very slim :-)
Well, if that was OK not to have AI in an aircraft, then why would PPL student learn to fly in IMC? :)
I’m with Peter – it costs almost nothing, otherwise no IMC (including accidental) or when the sea and horizon merge or at night (dusk).
I just flew 3.9 hours in a Super Cub which did have an AI once, but it hasn’t worked in decades. I don’t see the problem. I wouldn’t dream of taking something like that up if there was the remotest possibility of bad weather. You can have lots of fun flying in fine weather. I have about 150 hours in a Pitts S2C doesn’t have any gyro instruments for the simple reason that if it did, it would break them. And another 100 hours or so in various strictly-VFR Citabrias.
It’s all a question of mission. If you fly to go places, you need IFR. And deice too, really, at least in winter. But if you just bimble around for fun, or fly aerobatics, you don’t need them at all.
Most French PPLs (and Europe generally) don’t have an IR, and I believe the EASA PPL doesn’t even require basic hood time as the FAA one does. So even if they had the instruments, they wouldn’t know what to do with them.
johnh wrote:
Most French PPLs (and Europe generally) don’t have an IR, and I believe the EASA PPL doesn’t even require basic hood time as the FAA one does. So even if they had the instruments, they wouldn’t know what to do with them.
They do now! I’ve got my PPL half a decade ago and there was some flying under the hood.
I wouldn’t dream of taking something like that up if there was the remotest possibility of bad weather
That’s the problem, isn’t it 
How lucky do you feel?
I am sure it can be done, if you stay local / do short legs (in a lot of flying you can practically see the wx at the destination, from 2000ft AAL at your departure airfield – e.g. EGKA-EGMD) but that is a limitation one needs to be happy with. Basically you are accepting a severe tradeoff in the despatch rate, and getting somewhere.
The PPL has had a 180 in [simulated] IMC for many decades.
It is also very easy to learn to fly in IMC, with an AI, to the extent of not immediately killing yourself. I’ve taught lots of people to do that 
Peter wrote:
Basically you are accepting a severe tradeoff in the despatch rate,
Only if you see the plane as an A-to-B means of transportation, as opposed to “just for the fun of flying by the the seat of one’s pants” or “look at the countryside from the air”.
… and staying very local / having nearby places to land, always.
No, why? Before I had the IR I did loads of long distance flights VFR. On these (other than night) there were a handful of episodes where I needed the AI. You can cross Europe or the US without any gyro instruments.
