Andrew Gideon wrote:
Okay, well, I'll defer to your experience. Most of my non-training
IFR
flights have involved a lot of straight and level, with the
occasional
maneuver mixed in just to keep me awake. For early training, this
seems
like a lot of wasted time. But if you got a lot out of it, then who
am I
to argue?

And maybe you're one of those people who 'got' straight and level right
away, and could hold +/-40 ft and +/-5 degrees in smooth air
immediately and without much effort. Some people can do that, and
probably would not get a lot out of it. However, I do insist on those
fairly tight tolerances (in smooth air only - in rough air it's just
not practical) before we move on to maneuvers because that level of
control will be required for the maneuvers.

To this I should add that my CFII took an instrument student on an
actual
flight that was not as I described above. He flew from CDW to MMU
(about 5
miles), flew multiple approaches, and then went back to CDW.

That's probably some kind of record, but I have taken a student on an
actual flight from DWH to EYQ (9 nm) where we flew three NDB approaches
and landed. Thing is, that would have been overload for a new student.
With a new student, I would have taken him on a short XC (maybe
EYQ-CLL) terminating with a VOR or LOC approach - and I would have
configured the radios and done the communications for him, so that he
would only have to fly the headings and altitudes I gave him, and at
most track a VOR/LOC needle. I will also admit that the workload of
doing that (for me as the instructor) is substantially higher than the
workload of single pilot IFR in IMC with no autopilot.

I'm
astonished that TRACON accomodated this in IMC, but it does show that

actual flying can be set up to involve little straight and level.

TRACON will generally accomodate such requests if traffic permits,
which it usually does at the little airports in lousy weather. You
would be surprised how little traffic there is at the little airports
in hard IFR conditions. Most instrument rated private pilots won't
launch into hard IFR. The busy times are actually those of MVFR -
that's when everyone is up training.

Michael