Campbell,
Your input to date has been excellent and reassuring. It has, however, been concentrated solely around "recreational flying training" towards "acquiring" an FAA PPL "license or certificate", i.e. initial issue.
I for one would welcome your point of view on flying training towards an FAA IFR "rating" on an existing FAA PPL. To my mind this can be nothing but recreational in both use and training but is not necessarily about "acquiring a certificate or license".
Without seeing the content of the La Fleur/Reich letter I'm in the dark as to any possible differing INS interpretation. Are INS adjudications available on the web?
Thanks.