Dave Reinhart wrote:
I'm looking for suggestions for a school to do an IFR finish-up course
in December or January. I live in Massachusetts and while I don't mind
flying actual IFR there's entirely too much ice in the clouds around
here that time of year. A break from the winter chill wouldn't be bad,
either.

I live in Boston and trained locally, out of Hanscom. January isn't the
worst time of year as the temps at altitude are often well below
freezing. Flying in actual conditions regularly from November to April
we picked up trace rime on one occasion, and canceled one flight.
Conditions did dictate where we went, as conditions often varied quite
widely from Worcester to Manchester to New Bedford.

The most critical element in this is getting an experienced CFII. I can
recommend a couple in the Boston area if you want. From what I've seen,
an awfully large number of instructors will not go up with students in
anything worse than marginal VFR/IFR conditions and less than one in
five will do it when you have anything near LIFR. If you just want the
rating in order to have it, that's fine I suppose.

-cwk.