Shy Tourque's experience is somewhat worrying. Is it the case that since the instrument requirements for the PPL have increased, instructors are increasingly (illegally in some cases) taking students into IMC to make use of the undoubted benefits of experiencing it for real? Of course when instructing, the radio can be a bit of a pain, especially if having to provide the long speil of filing an airbourn flight plan, so they just don't bother and rely on the big sky theory. Except that in certain parts of the country, the sky is not that big. It would also be interesting to see if the level of IFR traffic OCAS is on the increase. Certainly the ever increasing numbers of smaller airports (OCAS) being adopted by low cost airlines is not helping but are there more and more people using small twin IFR helicopters, biz jets and private pilots trying to go by air rather than being stuck on the roads?