God 'bushy' that cracked me up!!!
'jaba' ya know I only have yr welfare at heart here buddy
Flying SE IFR is suicide BUT it's a suicidal personal choice I guess
A portable GPS as has been mentioned here is the way yo go if IFR is yr scene.
Also a constant knowledge of situational awareness whilst in IMC. I'd bet a LOT of IFR drivers just sit back watch the auto's fly the plane in solid IMC esspecially now with hyper accurate GPS gear with only a basic understanding of knowing exactly where they are in relation to terrain, I know I am guilty too at times of that.
Hand held transceivers are not that expensive either, another tool to have if yr an avid cloud lover:-)
Either way know yr plane & know the places ( printed material) where to find help
Quick story:
Aircraft, C210 (owned by Bishop Jobst)
Scene, Broome,daylight with a NVMC return to Broom.with but stormy wx about.
Task, pvt flight with some hapless caravaners I met during a trip around Oz.
Route,Nth from Broome along coast down along Prince Regent River then over to Kunners back via Derby into Broome with a planned night ldg.
Enroute to Kunners now late arvo I noticed the the radio's getting dull (digital readout). Anyway all else looked ok (battery/amps etc).
lowered the U/C & Flaps for arrival into Kunners & thought gee that was slowish. Green pilot here way back then:-)
Fueled up started the Conty (just fired on first compression) & set course for Broome NVMC after a very slow gear retraction. (yeah I know Jaba I was dumb back then flying SE at night!
)
About half way home to Broome I had the inky darkness of the night sky INSIDE the plane! Total elect failure!!!......SH1T !!!!! Luckily it was a full moon & one could see the ground fairly clearly but was damn hard work flying the plane by hand using compass & WAC charts. Finally found Broome town lights buzzed over the town a few times changing pwr settings to hopefully get someone to come out & turn on the rwy lights. Fortunately they where on anyway so did manual gear ext as well as flapless ldg. Broome back then was much quieter.
My pax where great people, hardly screamed at all!!!
I got back to my caravan, changed my 'super-man' suit (undies) & quietly had a drink or three !!! Thank God it wasn't true IMC but was the hardest think I had ever done,well up to then at least!
Wmk2