Instrument Training And Actual IMC

No, and the number that proves the school is a good place to train is the same number that proves the point. Measuring NOAA ASOS observations at Van Nuys through the Iowa Environmental Mesonet for the twelve months ending 1 August 2026, 355 days met a training standard of a 3,000 foot ceiling or better with 5 statute miles or better, on at least four qualifying daytime hours. Across the same year, 363 days cleared basic visual minimums — a 1,000 foot ceiling with 3 statute miles.

Turn those figures over and you have the honest version. A year in which 363 days offered a usable visual window is a year with very little persistent instrument weather in it. Most of what Southern California does produce arrives as a marine layer that sits over the basin early and lifts: in June, only 40% of 7am observations cleared the training standard, 93% did by 11am, and from 1pm the figure ran between 97 and 100%.

So the plain statement. If you train for an instrument rating at Van Nuys, you should expect most of your 40 hours to be flown behind a view-limiting device rather than inside cloud. That is legal, it is what 14 CFR 61.65(d)(2) contemplates, and it is not the same experience. A school that says otherwise is selling you a sky it does not have.

From NOAA ASOS observations at Van Nuys, pulled through the Iowa Environmental Mesonet, for the twelve months ending 1 August 2026, taken across fifteen Southern California airports so the result had comparators rather than standing alone. Each hour was tested against a stated training standard of a ceiling of 3,000 feet or better with 5 statute miles or better, and a day counted only when four daytime hours qualified.

The comparator column is the part worth reading. Twelve miles up the valley, Burbank measured 356, and Phoenix Deer Valley matched it. Kissimmee in Florida landed on 355 — the same figure as Van Nuys, from an entirely different climate. Nearer the water, Santa Monica gave 343; Whiteman, also in the valley, 334; Torrance 332. Everett in Washington came out at 278 and Hillsboro in Oregon at 277. Van Nuys is excellent. It is not uniquely excellent, and fields twenty miles apart here differ by more than twenty days.

The limitations are published with the method rather than hidden behind it. Automated stations misread thin layers. Wind is not modelled at all, and a day that meets ceiling and visibility can still be unflyable for a student in a crosswind. A day counts on four qualifying hours, so a morning of genuine instrument conditions followed by a clear afternoon counts as a flyable day — which is exactly the reason 363 days met basic minimums and Los Angeles still has real weather in it.

It stays on your certificate and stops being usable. 14 CFR 61.57(c) requires six approaches, holding work, and the interception and tracking of courses on the navigation equipment, all performed and logged inside the preceding 6 calendar months. Fall outside that and you may not command a flight under instrument flight rules until you have flown them back.

There is a second door behind the first, and it closes. Under 14 CFR 61.57(d), a pilot more than six further calendar months out of currency can only recover it through an instrument proficiency check with an authorized instructor or examiner. Inside that window you may fly the approaches back with a safety pilot; past it, you cannot.

This is the part of the page that bites hardest in a good-weather city. A rating earned mostly under a hood, in a place where visual flying is available 355 days a year, is a rating with very little natural pressure to stay current. Put the six approaches in the diary before you need them, or accept that you will be paying for a proficiency check instead.