Guy Elden Jr. wrote:
It's not about a comfort level for me... it's about pilot workload. There is
a tremendous amount of work involved in flying heads down in the clouds, so
any device that can help alleviate that load is welcome by me. It may be
legal to fly in instrument conditions with two VORs and an ADF, but is it
really safe if you're the only pilot in the plane, weather is forming all
around you, and you have to hand fly the plane?

What's "safe"? I fly a fair amount of IMC in an aircraft with an old but
rock-solid COM/COM/NAV/ADF stack (plus a panel LORAN that flakes out in
precip and a NAV-11 which I'd file under "mostly adequate"), and it's
within *my* level of acceptable risk, but that's almost completely an
individual call under part 91.

That said, I do this because I've trained extensively with this sort of
setup, and (much like basic attitude flying) navigating with it
eventually became something that I could deal mostly subconsciously, with
with plenty of mental bandwith left over for thinking about planning and
weather and whatever else. I don't particularly think I'm an uberpilot,
though I do think my initial instrument instructors were *excellent*.

I'm also not against automation (I occasionally sneak into a phone booth
only to emerge as a 767 systems instructor), but there's a *lot* to be
said for training, practice, and situational awareness.