>Surely that's much more appropriate to a "fine" summer's day than flying in cloud? The probablility of collision is dominated by traffic density: the risk is much higher on a VMC day with high traffic density than in cloud with much lower traffic density -- in fact I'm aware of no collisions in cloud in the UK at all.<
I wonder how many AirProxes have occured in cloud without either pilot being aware of getting close to another aircraft. Twice in my flying career I have heard the engines of another aircraft whilst flying in cloud!
At least when you are flying VMC (or not in cloud, say) you have a fighting chance of seeing another aircraft and avoiding it and generally the traffic density is higher now than it used to be even when flying IMC.
Just because we cannot recall a collision in cloud does not mean that it cannot occur.
Oh and by the way, Shy Torque, my father taught me too and he taught me never to go into cloud without radar!!