SN3
I quoted that poster, and addressed the quoted comment. Work on your comprehension.
Read your own post. You addressed it specifically to me.
I probably have a fair bit more instrument experience than you
Exactly my point. You are making an error that is usually made by people with far less instrument experience (both IFR and IMC) than you have. Most get the confusion sorted in a short time, although I have had to resolve the confusion during line training.
No, not CONDITIONS but OPERATIONAL CONDITIONS, a very different thing, although I think the terminology is poor as it easily confuses those who have no idea about flying under JARs. In common aviation use the term 'conditions' refers to meteorological in-flight conditions. To ignore a vital part of a term you posted yourself is simply a dishonest argument, and invalidates most of your response to me!
There is no such thing as "IFR conditions" or "VFR conditions", they are things my PPL students would talk about. To specify "flight under IFR" is to specify an operational condition (note IFRs themselves are not a condition at all, but a set of rules; the choice to operate under IFR is an operational condition) that can be applied in any in-flight conditions, as you yourself admit. There is such thing as IMC, instrument meteorological conditions, under which VFR flight is not allowed (although in very restricted circumstances special VFR flight is allowed).
Flight under such Instrument Flight Rules is IFR flight, regardless of the meteorological conditions. The rules themselves define what constitutes flight under them, so there is no need for a separate definition.
The only reason you consider it necessary is because you are wrong about the nature of the term IFR, but that nature is inherent in the expansion of the abbreviation; it is a set of rules, and if the pilot is following all those rules, and is entitled to fly under IFR (and if the pilot so chooses, in circumstances where IFR is elective) then the flight is conducted under IFR regardless of in-flight conditions experienced.
I'm certainly open to a frank explanation for these references
No you are not. You have distorted the longest reference you have made, and initially lied about what it said. That is
not very frank.
... time spent on an IFR clearance, of it's own accord, is about as valuable as a two legged milkstool ...
Wrong. That is equivalent to saying that the PNF should not be logging time, or that a pilot taking a nap should subtract that time. It is also something that could only be said by someone who has never flown in South East England, the very area under discussion.
For real IFR flight operations, experience of flight under IFR clearance or under ATC guidance outside controlled airspace can be far more relevant than flight in IMC. Flying in empty class G in a cloud is very different to flying under radar control in busy class A airspace. The weather is for the most part completely irrelevant, as the aircraft is flown on autopilot!
bose-X
If you are operating in class A airspace then unless someone states specifically that you are operating special VFR then you are IFR, even if you are operating under an exemption in order to be allowed to do so. I have heard dozens of drop aircraft cleared into the LTMA, and never once heard the words special VFR spoken.
There are only three ways of flying, VFR, IFR and special VFR. You must be under one of them at any time you are flying legally. You cannot fly under VFR in class A airspace. For special VFR there is a legal requirement that you be offered and accept a clearance containing the term "special VFR". If you are in class A airspace legally and have not heard and read back "special VFR" then you are IFR!
Which IFR is it impossible for you to comply with? I have not dropped, but can't think what you might do against IFRs. If you have an exemption then it will be from that rule, not from IFRs themselves. Otherwise you would be airborne but not flying under any rules!
If you are flying on a JAA licence not only have you cut out a lot of your claim for experience by not logging IFR but you are also breaking the JAR-FCL regulations that SN3 quoted. See item 5, your "...record shall include ... (5)Operational conditions ... (ii)IFR".