In case, drauk, you are still interested in collecting opinions I also fly very regularly in IMC in a four-seater single, on my IMC rating with around 300 hours. Although it would be nice to have a co-pilot for extra safety, none of the people I fly with are pilots so that’s not possible but it doesn’t bother me too much. With our great British weather I find I am often in IMC for two hours at a time or more and am now virtually indifferent to conditions. You also get an RAS from many units which do not normally participate in LARS. However I do have gyro-failure paranoia and would certainly not consider myself the world’s greatest instrument pilot, so:-
1. I really do practice partial panel.
2. I have a fairly serious bit of GPS kit which would, I think, make a partial-panel recovery to VMC more manageable. It’s IFR-certified in the US and constantly monitors the integrity of the GPS signal. As a bonus it has thousands of published instrument approaches in the database which can be used supplementally to monitor (but not to fly!) the approaches for extra redundancy.
3. I always fly between VORs and NDBs so I never lose situational awareness if the GPS signal goes (which has happened more than once).
4. I watch the AI, TC and track (heading) indicator on the GPS like a hawk making sure that all three are consistent.
5. I let the AP do a lot of the work – it can be slaved to either the VOR- or GPS-receivers.
6. I have taken considerable trouble to read the AP handbook several times. Understanding how it works and how it would respond to AI and/or DI failure is absolutely essential.
7. If I lost the AI I would not fly on partial panel for a second longer than necessary but declare an emergency and fly to wherever I thought was the nearest VMC, no matter in which direction, including up into class A (with a clearance) if necessary.