Of course you could do a practise ILS in real IMC in which case you wouldn't need a safety pilot. But then I suppose it wouldn't be a practise ILS; although if you had taken off in IFR conditions solely to practice instrument approaches then I suppose it would be construed as a 'practise real ILS'. Or a real ILS that was flown intentionally. But then any ILS flown in IMC conditions would be intentional I suppose. Mmmmmm....semantics.
For what it's worth if I do a practise instrument approach in vmc I always take a safety pilot. Would be a bit daft not to.
I would also disagree that a practise instrument approach in vmc has no training value. What woud be the point of flying an expensive a/c, getting a mate to sit alongside and then looking up out of the cockpit during the approach? I did a PAR the other day, at night to kill two birds with one stone. The vis was superb, I can state with hand on heart that once past 500' I didn't look away from the instruments until at minimums on the approach. Waste of money otherwise.
Last edited by thing; 15th December 2012 at 23:34.