Let me take a stab at this as I have been under the hood, but have given a lot of instruction by putting people under the hood. The hood itself doesn't limit the vision of the instructor. However, instrument training has its side effects in terms of the impact it has on the people who are teaching. I found myself in positions that i had to draw a quick holding picture on my or on the student's knee pad during this instruction. Of course, at the time there was noone looking outside. Was this unsafe? No; because the process takes 10 secs, and you look for the traffic right before you do this. Knowing the airspace helps a great deal. If you avoid given VFR altitudes, and the altitudes that are related to some approach lines that you will cross, does help. Getting a flight following by ATC helps, but it is not 100% guaranteed. Even when you are in IFR flight, "see and be seen" is the best way to prevent this thing from happening. The ATC is not obbligated to tell you the traffic around you if the work load is unbearable. (But they do it 99% of the time). This accident, no matter how unfortunate it is, was the bi-product of conducting a flight instruction and just flying also. It happens, but it is a lot more safer than driving down on I-270 around Columbus, OH :) BAHA Fan of given flight instruction :) -----Original Message----- From: The Airline List [mailto:AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Gerard M Foley Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 12:49 PM To: AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: IFR Instruction I read somewhere on the net last week about a collision between two light singles. each carrying a flight instructor and a student. One pair survived and one pair was killed. It was said that one of the students was being given IFR instruction. I forget why the other one was up. Isn't the situation of the pilot being under a hood about the most hazardous planned one that exists? Is the Instructor's view considerably reduced when his student is under a hood? The particular accident account did not say anything about a hood, and I don't know if it was the IFR pair who survived. Gerry http://www.pbase.com/gfoley9999/ http://foley.ultinet.net/~gerry/aerial/aerial.html http://home.columbus.rr.com/gfoley http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/pollock/263/egypt/egypt.html