The question is whether providing some IMC training would build competency or confidence or both. What I find when talking to VFR pilots is that they are often overconfident that they will cope with VFR flight into IMC with the limited instrument training they have received.
I think the exact opposite is true. Being overconfident is a direct result of them not knowing what they are talking about. That is because they THINK – having been made believe by this ridiculous ‘hood’ -that real IMC is comparable to the hood.
Nobody in his right mind ‘pushes an envelope’ after having experienced heavy IMC without autopilot. It will scare the bejesus out of any VFR pilot and will make him want to learn it or stay away from IMC. PPL education doesn’t even give a remote idea what real IMC is. Which is exactly the reason that they feel it can’t be so hard (overconfident behavior).
Your argument is often brought forward by flight instructors who themselves are not IMC rated and thus themselves do not know what they are talking about.
Rwy20 wrote:
. It also sounds like the arguments that you hear in the US against sex education. 
I do believe that sexual education has never prevented anyone from going ahead and have sex. 
Likewise I do believe that more IMC training in the PPL syllabus won’t prevent anyone who wants to venture into IMC that they are not prepared for, and maybe even build their confidence in their ability to master it.
In any event, everything here are assumptions that could only be verified by experiments which would take years to complete
Aviathor wrote:
I do believe that sexual education has never prevented anyone from going ahead and have sex. Likewise I do believe that more IMC training in the PPL syllabus won’t prevent anyone who wants to venture into IMC that they are not prepared for, and maybe even build their confidence in their ability to master it.
and Sex doesn’t kill if you overestimate yourself. Small, but significant difference….
EuroFlyer wrote:
The question is whether providing some IMC training would build competency or confidence or both. What I find when talking to VFR pilots is that they are often overconfident that they will cope with VFR flight into IMC with the limited instrument training they have received.I think the exact opposite is true. Being overconfident is a direct result of them not knowing what they are talking about. That is because they THINK – having been made believe by this ridiculous ‘hood’ -that real IMC is comparable to the hood.
As a VFR only pilot I am a bit confused about this. Another possible option is that they are overconfident or just poor VFR pilots. IFR training, or not, has very little to do with it, and is in any case not a realistic solution. Time and money will restrict the amount of flying, and if this total amount is to be spread out on even more training and ratings, the quality of the basic VFR skills of any given pilot will only become worse.
Aviathor wrote:
The question is whether providing some IMC training would build competency or confidence or both. What I find when talking to VFR pilots is that they are often overconfident that they will cope with VFR flight into IMC with the limited instrument training they have received.
At the time before I had the IR, I had decided that if I were ever caught below a descending cloudbase or reducing visibility with no “out”, I would climb on instruments to a safe altitude and call “MAYDAY”. Was that overconfident? I don’t know, but in retrospect I don’t think so. Keeping the aircraft right side up on instruments is not the difficulty with IFR.
That wasn’t my sentence you quoted, but that of aviathor.
EuroFlyer wrote:
That wasn’t my sentence you quoted, but that of aviathor.
Sorry, I was confused because you quoted him without marking it as a quote… I’ve changed the attribution in my posting.
Peter wrote:
You don’t ask ATC if you can land there…
I imagine he might have asked if he could legally land there.
I’ve had a situation twice in France where I asked. Once, by phone, because we had been suck in Biarritz due to low cloud (Legal restriction only, we couldn’t fly IFR, as we were on G-Reg, and I had only IR(R) and my friend (who wasn’t PIC anyway had an FAA IR).
We refueled, had lunch, then someone came to the plane and told us “Don’t bother strapping in, ATC said they won’t give you permission to take off”
Other time, had passed my IR test 3 weeks before (but didn’t have the paper from the CAA), and was told en route that “my VFR flight plan had been cancelled” due to weather, and that I couldn’t go to my destination. Given the weather at my 1st diversion was (legally) close to what I thought might be the limit, I wanted to make sure they would let me land, and asked to confirm if conditions didn’t worsen that I’d get a landing clearance.
was told en route that “my VFR flight plan had been cancelled” due to weather
I have heard that before a few times. My memory is vague but I did once hear it on the radio, over France. It is quite outrageous. ATC has no right to do this.
Once it happened to me, at Granada, on a trip to Zaragoza. Zaragoza cancelled the flight plan because, they claimed, I had not obtained PPR. Actually PPR had been obtained by Granada OPS, over the phone, right in front of me. This move is less bad than cancelling a flight plan for an airborne aircraft but is still pretty aggressive. It is possible due to the way the AFTN works; the less said publicly the better 
We should start a new thread on ATC rights to cancel one’s FP. Actually there is one here
