Dave Butler wrote
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)?

Well, that's life. VFR services are on a workload-permitting basis for
controllers. What you are saying is that you are not comfortable flying VFR, I
guess.

I don't see it that way at all.

Approach control tends to be busy when a lot of people are filing and
flying IFR. You would think that would be due to weather below VFR
minimums, but that has not been my experience. I find that when the
weather is below VFR minimums, approach is not too terribly busy.
Very few instrument rated pilots do much flying when weather is below
VFR minimums (one would hope those not rated do none at all). My
experience is that approach is busiest when the weather is marginal
VFR, especially due to low vis. That's when the instrument rated
private pilots come out of the woodwork and file.

Normally, I don't worry all that much about flying VFR in 3-5 miles in
haze. In fact, I generally prefer it to filing IFR. I don't have a
lot of faith in ATC separation - the closest near miss I've ever had
was on an IFR flight plan. I think I get more benefit out of being at
a VFR altitude and well clear of cloud than I do from ATC looking out
for me. Of course both is best, but VFR services are not always
available.

Sure, it's significantly harder to see other airplanes, but there are
simply not too many of them to see. Big sky theory. Statistics bear
this out - most midairs occur in good VMC, when lots of people are
flying, rather than in marginal conditions when planes are hard to
see. Anyway, most midairs occur close to airports, where you
generally don't get RADAR services anyway.

However, flying an approach defeats the big sky theory, and ATC is
better than nothing. If approach is busy, it's because lots of people
are flying approaches - maybe the one you're flying.

As for others on the approach, well you can monitor the approach control
frequency, and you have a safety pilot looking out the window.

If you happen to know the area well, that works. My experience has
been that about 20% of the time the approach frequency I get vectored
on is not the frequency printed on the plate.

So what it comes down to is that I too am not too terribly comfortable
flying approaches under the hood at untowered fields on most days when
approach control is too busy to handle me even VFR. The risk of
midair definitely increases over and above what is normal for VFR,
even VFR in marginal vis.

Not saying I won't do it - the risk is not extreme - but I prefer not
to unless there is a good reason. I find that generally there is not
- on days like that, I go to a towered field. At a towered field, the
tower controllers are pretty good about advising me of other aircraft
on the approach and in the pattern, and besides talking is an
important part of flying IFR so the practice is of higher quality.

Michael