Well, you can hope and dream all you want, but only 3 hours
of training in basic instrument procedures is required for a
private pilot certificate. Even good instrument rated pilots
(the best ones) set personal minimums until they gain a certain
number of hours of instrument flying to gain confidence....
and that is without an instructor in the right seat.

Agree 100 percent with the above.

Finding yourself in the dead middle of hard IMC with only
3 hours of training can be disasterous as this sad event
illustrates. If you think these 3 hours will save your life
if you get into a situation like that you are whistling past
a graveyard.

and here is my take on training.

It shoudl be *required* that every VFR pilot experience actual IMC in
the three hours as part of their VFR training, to recognize and see the
real dangers of IMC.

I took a VFR only pilot up doing some approaches in actual conditions,
and by the time we landed, his eyes were big as saucers, and also came
out of it with a fuller respect for IMC conditions. We had 1.1 hours
of hard IMC out of 1.5 hours of flying.

It was bumpy inside the clag, and by the time we landed, he even said,
I'm not so sure I could have handled it by myself. He also said, had
he not purposely focused on the intruments, he wouldn't have know which
way was up. Never mind trying to handle the controls, it was
overwhelming just experiencing it.

Nothing like the real thing.....

Allen