Let's meet behind the shelter shed after school. Thems fightin' words.
I have no plans to "fight" with anyone! I expressed an opinion that the experiences of others on this thread regarding the VMC/IMC issue differed from mine. My experience has been that the 5 hrs basic IF that I did for my PPL gave me the skills needed to save my hide when I screwed up some 3 yrs later. Makes me think that it should do the same for others!
You are welcome to disagree with me but you can't say I am WRONG unless you can present DATA to support your position.
The basic issue with these continuing VFR into IMC accidents is poor decision making. I don't know how you fix that - unfortunately there is an element of Darwinian selection in that!
Some years ago I participated in a research project run out of a Sydney based uni, maybe UNSW, that involved putting pilots of various backgrounds and experience levels in a simulator and looking at how they responded to a range of weather senarios in order to try to get a handle on their decision making processes.
Unfortunately, I have never seen the outcomes, if any, from that research.
Interestingly, spending an hour or so looking through my log books this morning has not stimulated my memory of another incident like the one I described above. The most vivid memory is of the day I was I was flying a bloke to his funeral in NZ in a VFR C206. The weather was very marginal and I eventually found myself flying up a valley with a decreasing ceiling and the clouds on the hills either side of the valley. I said to my pax, "If I keep doing this I am going to end up like you", and with that I did a quick 180 and took him back to Palmerston North. Fortunately, he didn't offer any comment!
The undertakers were pissed, but my response was, if you wanted to be sure he got to the funeral your should have taken him by road or chartered an IFR aeroplane!
Dr 