Passing thoughts:
- LAA will approve just about any instruments you want in your permit aircraft so long as you go through the normal mod approval process.
- You can always fly IFR in VMC in anything, quite legally; you can also ask for an any level of ATC service. Just don't accept an ATC clearance that would take you IMC (or in a permit aircraft, over built up areas, or in single engined aeroplanes contravene rule 5). I've done this in a flexwing through southampton zone, declined an ATC clearance over the city, and been given an alternative that suited everybody. This really isn't that difficult.
- If you are flying VFR, inadvertently go into IMC and use instruments to escape it safely, nobody is ever going to criticise this, so long as you didn't actually plan to go IMC, nor stay in it for prolonged periods.
- There are many VFR flights where IMC capability provedes a definite safety benefit. For example, I have quite a few times flown a track en-route to Scotland that took me straight from Rhyll to somewhere west of Carlisle. With that long sea crossing, I routinely don't have an kind of visual horizon - I'm legally VFR, but no way I'd want to do it without at-least an AI and turn indicator.
- You can save a lot of money by going for cheaper uncertified instruments, but if the LAA don't ensure "certified-like" checks on the quality of the installation, then you certainly should.
- All of the above equally applies to any 3-axis microlight (personally I'd not take a flexwing IMC if humanly possible, I'd rather land it in the nearest available field, and on one occasion have done).
- Needless to say, it would be a really good idea to get IMC training if flying with IMC instruments. It's not something to make up as you go along.
G