Dave Butler wrote:


It sounds like you are doing your practicing under IFR. That's probably a
good idea from the POV of working within the system and practicing
procedures with a real controller. I don't feel the need to do that.

Psst...wanna know a secret? I do it because I'm lazy. It's more work if I
have to deal with acquiring Flight Following, at least in my neighborhood.
There's also a fair chance that I'll not be able to speak to anyone while
approaching my "home" airport, which means one less approach.

But I do also like the practice of being in the system.

[...]

Controllers here (Raleigh, NC) are usually happy to accomodate requests
for VFR practice approaches. Sometimes they get too busy for that, so I
terminate radar advisories and do full procedures (no vectors).

I don't know that I'm so comfortable with this idea. Being on an approach
w/o talking to someone because that someone is too busy? What if the
someone is busy because of others on the approach (or perhaps a conflicting
approach)?

I usually
do my approaches at nearby non-towered fields that are under the Raleigh
TRACON jurisdiction, followed by an approach to a full stop at RDU, where
I'm based.

I dislike practicing approaches to nontowered fields VFR. It's not very
good practice, I've found, because I need to behave in a "non-IFR" way
towards the end of the approach to avoid other traffic.

I'll often have to skip the final stepdown entirely, in fact, to stay
sufficiently high that I can join the pattern.

Practicing in controlled airspace lets me behave more realistically, in my
experience.

I'm curious what others think on this, though.

- Andrew