For the FAA Ir I managed it in 3 weeks with a spare week that I used for lying by the pool afterwards! All the training done on a twin Beech Duchess, exam done on first day, loads of self study in the months before. Give yourself plenty spare time for technical problems and weather.

Average hours for the UK IMC I would have guessed about 18-20?

IMC time
 

I have around 80 hrs in total which include the 17.5 it took to get my IMC. I made the descision to do it in the UK, which took around 6 months but really gave me the chance to work on areas where I was weak between lessons on FS2004.

I did my PPL in 17 days in the USA, while I passed without problem I certainly wasn't prepared for the airspaces challenges North of London (compared with the open expanses of Florida). The IMCr has massively improved my flying, confidence and general navigation. I would definately recommend it too all.

IMC time / training aids
 

In addition to those things already mentioned I also used:
- Tim's Navaid simulator
Tim's Air Navigation Simulator
- OAT Media IMC DVD

And one key thing: I think I had a particularly good instructor.

I did it in just under 16 hours; Feb. this year.

I notice that many people seem to recommend FS 2004, i have FS 2002 is there anything special about 2004 that makes it superior for practicisng instrument procedures or will 2002 suffice? Must admit i have never been a massive fan of FS but I will certainly give it a go alongside RANT for the IMCr.

Cheers.

I completed my IMC in 17 hours. But a word of advice, make sure you get real IMC experience. Foggles and wot not are all very well, but there are still cues, there is nothing like the sudden onset of the white box teach you how to deal with the leans.

Self study ground school with Thom Book 5 and the RANT exercises were sufficient for the ground school.

So true. But bear in mind that professional pilots are generally operating more stringent criteria and in something considerably faster and due to their hours, are exposed to many more mistakes by themselves, other pilots and ATC. This does up the ante somewhat.

You would be better off with FS 98 or something that isn't as resource hungry. My gripe with FS generally is that I spend more time faffing with it than using so I just gave up. My preference is ELITE Simulation Solutions - The PCATD Leader. More expensive for the disc but no need for an up to date powerful PC. It is specifically designed for instrument practice and it shows.

Either is fine. No sim replicates the aircraft behaviour well, especially in pitch, but this doesn't matter since the job is to get the procedures into your head, and how the instruments respond, etc. You are not going for a scenic flight :) For a scenic flight, you might buy x-plane and the 20GB of NASA scenery....

Typical hours to complete IMC cource
 

It took me 21 hrs at a flight school in Florida, not including the actual test. Do lots of Flight Simulator practice to reduce the flying hours a bit. I did not think it was worth going to the US to do an IMC; there's not enough cloudy weather!