Useful in an emergency?

[Pugilistic Animus]

Pilot DAR Quite an account good thing you were up on the partial panel...the holes were really almost completely lined up for you...

in GA real heavy IMC IMHO requires a twin with some sort of storm detection...even satellite Wx...otherwise it's gamble...A Cirrus or something like that can do light IMC with no problem if you want to do even light IMC with a basic plane you'd better keep cross checking everything...as the above posts makes precisely clear you never know what will fail, how it will fail, how fast it will fail, and when it fail..so if you want to take the risk of only having an AI and TC you had better never really trust them...

Best to use the iPhone to cancel your IFR flight plan--- if things are too heavy and you're not prepared... then use it to call the taxi to take you back to the motel...