You’re talking about my home field. Until the last couple of days, it’s been IFR every day at SEE till late morning or later with the coast often staying IFR most of the day. True about the importance of VDA - vertical descent angles. TERPS criteria has a maximum VDA for approaches to allow straight in minimums and a GS or GP - which is 3.77 degrees - which is why the SEE LOC-D has only circling minimums. Of course it’s not 6.88 degrees down to circling minimums- just for a straight in. But if it’s VMC before you get to DERBY and you descend below 2700’ before then, then you can get away with flying a stabilized straight in to 27R. But for training we’ll always circle on a circling approach. Note even the VASI on that runway is 4.5 degrees! Sure thing approaches in our area on low IFR days are MYF ILS or GPS 28R, CRQ ILS or GPS 24, or SDM GPS 08L with cheap gas. Come see us again soon! Instrument students here get a lot of actual IMC including partial panel IMC before their check ride. Actual IMC training i believe is critical IMO. Just a week ago a young pilot flying a twin from phoenix area flew into KSAN and was trying to get in VFR but was forced to get an IFR or divert and had a really hard time flying the approach but made it. Then departed IMC a couple days later tragically killing all aboard from what clearly was spatial-d with only a 800’ layer. I say only 800’ because pilots seriously underestimate how easily and how quickly they can loose control once they get into IMC. Right after the pilot entered IMC the controller gave him a 90 degree turn to the south and he lost it. Flight aware track shows just before coming out to SD the pilot did 6 practice approaches - repeating the same GPS approach 6 times; presumably to get legal currency. But we all know legal currency doesn’t mean instrument proficiency. This was our second tragic IFR fatal accident in 2 weeks both killing 6 people - luckily no one on the ground too. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk