Wow rotorfan, that reminded me of the curtain on the 130 used for the same thing, an ingenius solution solving the no peeking problem
While it's true that a PPL in the states is rated for night and legal, you would be hard pressed to find an operator here that will allow the operation. most insurance's won't cover it, ot the operator has it's own rules for "Student night flight", Night flight here where weather can eat you up in a heartbeat while not even approaching VFR min's can make for an exciting flight.
All my night time is "Simulated", I am accompanied by a CFI, who rides along offering nothing more than conversation and monitoring. First attempt at my 50Nm X-C was with a lowering 600' overcast ( a cold front across the penny was moving our way) Bad enought getting used to seeing the deck just above me, but combine that with lights on one side and the black hole of the ocean on my right .... one could easily get nervous, and I was for the first 30 minutes. I made all the right decisions that night, including knowing my reaching the destination was not a "Must do" item, when we reached PBI we turned around knowing it just wasn't going to happen.
A pilot reacting like I did that night will never get into a position to find out (hopefully) what IMC is like in the robbie. With no AI, and no visual, to me, it's not doable in that bird.
Soon, I'll be doing my partial instrument in a 22 with the larger panel, I'm "comfortable" on instruments, but this will be new, and I expect to be all over the place, if I am lucky, I want to shoot approaches on a foggy morning. I have already flown twice myself on reduced visibility days with normal to heavy rain (but vis and ceiling above VFR basic min's)
that is bad enough ....
If you are not rated, and the aircraft properly equipped, just don't get into it!
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Marc
[This message has been edited by RW-1 (edited 12 March 2001).]