Originally Posted by
Fluke
Out of interest are we talking a raw data ILS or using a flight director ?
Not sure I have quite the confidence as one of the posters above who claims instrument flight to be bread and butter stuff for anyone with an instrument rating. I have flown IMC for the last 25 years and I always move up a gear of concentration and alertness when entering cloud or decreased visibility environments.
I wish the pilot well and hope he receives some extra training to regain confidence in the black arts.
Having a flight director in a typical Cessna 310 would be unusual, so I’d assume raw data. If all you know is raw data AND you are in practice, it’s not hard. There was a time when we didn’t even have HSI displays or RMIs and when instrument layouts were messy, with the AH often away to one side of the panel, or wherever else it would fit. When the standard T panel and HSI/RMI became ubiquitous we were in hog heaven. Safety definitely improved and workload decreased with better cockpit instrumentation.
Instrument flight becomes hard either through lack of practice in real IMC (as opposed to ‘pretending’ in bright daylight under the hood), or after being spoiled by over reliance on flight directors and automation.