"David Reinhart" wrote:

No, they have to be done in VFR.

There exist counterexamples.

My own instrument check ride was conducted mostly under IFR. We were in
visual flight conditions -- perhaps not always legally VMC, but that's not
relevant to the legalities of flying under IFR.


There's several reasons for this. One of them is that some of the tasks
required (like unsual attitudes) would require a block altitude clearance and
clearance to deviate from an assigned heading. Obviously in busy terminal
airspace that could be difficult to do.

We did cancel IFR for this purpose, but that was only about five minutes out
of a check ride that ran between 1.5 and 2.0 hours.


On the legal side, the FAA requires the inspector or DE to make it clear
to the applicant that he or she is the pilot in command, not the person
giving the checkride. That being the case, since the applicant is not
instrument rated he or she can not act as PIC of an aircraft operating
under IFR.

On the legal side, who would be the PIC for a Private check ride? Once
again the applicant is not technically qualified. It would be quite a
contradiction to say that a DE is PIC for the Private ride but not for the
Instrument ride.