@aterpster gave some reasons for being reluctant to take students into IMC above. Another is if you fly out of an airport where IMC likely means conditions low enough that you likely won't get back in, with the inconvenience of having to call for a ride and lost time/revenue. My first CFII was very experienced and wasn't at all afraid of IMC, but only took me into it twice - and once by accident - because that was a significant risk since the approaches into his home field only get you down to 500 AGL at best, and he just didn't want to have to deal with canceling with his next student (which would, of course, in most cases have been a ground lesson).
Where do you come up with this stuff? In 10+ years in GA and 4 years of instructing, I haven't met a CFII who would refrain from flying in IMC given the right conditions. The problem is that the right conditions for a piston single with no icing protection, stormscope, or onboard weather radar seldom make an appearance.
Meh..The problem is that the definition of the "right conditions" varies wildly depending on the instructor/pilot. I've taken students up on days that some pilots would call insane. I've also seen instructors take people into actual on days that I would call insane.
), but at least you don't expect a commercial pilot (except maybe an aerobatics instructor) to spin on a regular basis. You do expect an instrument rated pilot to fly in clouds, so being taught your IR by a CFII who's never seen the inside of a cloud is probably the height of government lunacy. (As I mentioned in a different thread, the Chief Instructor/CFII at my helicopter school once told me that he'd never flown in clouds.)
There I have what?
I don't disagree with anything you said.
The northeast is almost ideal for flying actual. I did my instrument training in New England, got a decent amount of actual, including two real missed approaches, one to an ILS.
IOW, "I'm not one for more regulation unless it involves rules I want to impose on other people."
I figured someone would post that
Never happen in Colorado. Most IMC is TS or freezing.
Once even anarchists get in a group, they want to regulate others. The only difference I've ever been able to see across the entire political spectrum is the choice of subject-matter.
No, you're just making sweeping generalizations and assumptions. You've provided no examples.
The bottom line is some instructors have experience a student will need, and some don't. The free market makes it readily apparent who is and isn't a good instructor. While there's nothing wrong with posing a question, the premise of the question (that a lack of regulation in this area is a "self-licking ice cream cone") isn't based on the existence of any problems that would be resolved by mandating what is being suggested.
That being said, IMC in a piston single isn't something that I get warm and fuzzies over these days now that I'm not an active CFII hungry to build actual time...Fly all weather, twin turbines for work long enough will do that to a person.At the very least students should be taken on a night XC during instrument training over dark nothingness on a moonless night if clouds aren't a feasable option...Going Eastbound out of the PHX area on a moonless night is pretty much solid blackness for at least 30 or 40 miles.
I got my IR with only 0.7 actual and managed to keep the greasy side down for those first few hours of being in the clouds by myself, so the system worked fine for me.
135.243 actually doesn't require 50 hours of actual instrument time. The way it's worded, you need 75 hours of instrument time of which 50 have to be in "actual flight" meaning not in a SIM...hood time counts towards the requirment though since it's in an aircraft moving through the air. I once gave IOE to a new guy at a 135 freight operator who had never seen the inside of a cloud until one of our IOE flights.
