- Do you take a VFR map along just in case your VOR/ADF/DME or glasscockpit fails ? Or you trust your IFR certified airplane and just take an IFR map with you ?
Yes. Running as a GPS moving map, too. You must have a battery powered backup for NAV & COMMS for a total electrical failure, which is possible even in many twins.
- I had an instructor who imposed the following minima for single engine piston IFR flight in his school :
* Minimum Visibility for take off = minimum Vis for Landing x 1,5 (and no inferior to 1500meters)
* Minimum Ceiling for take off = minimum ceiling for landing x 2 (and no lower than 500 feet).
What would you do for a private IFR flight ? Do you find it too conservative ? Or not safe enough ?
It is perhaps a very safe guideline but is not based on any legal requirements and is pretty impractical unless you are flying old wreckage.
It also depends on the actual figures. If your airport has an ILS with a 200ft DH then a min 400ft cloudbase is reasonable for departures. Similarly if it has high intensity lighting and your plane has an autopilot which can fly an ILS then you can land with a vis of 550m (I think; 800m otherwise) and again a requirement of 1100m vis for a departure is not too bad; anything less means you can't be sure there isn't a fire truck or whatever parked at the far end of the runway especially if departing out of hours when there is nobody in the tower.
I wonder if he bans night flight too.
If you don't like it, get yourself your own plane
It's the only solution.
Of course there is much more to this.... surface weather is only a part of the picture in IFR ops; any monkey can get airborne under a 400ft cloudbase but it is high altitude weather is what will normally bite you (structural icing, CBs, etc). 400ft cloudbase is probably heavy warm front weather with tops ~ FL250 and the potential icing band in that will be ~8000ft thick.
Note also that "cloudbase" is the base of any cloud, whereas "ceiling" is the base of BKN or OVC only. This works in your favour
in the interpretation of these rules, but not if the FEW or SCT is sitting on the glideslope when you get there
Your name isn't Eric by any chance? Maybe not; he lives in Cologne