(Paul Tomblin) wrote:
"Cleared to Geneseo VOR, via direct, climb to 4,000 expect 6,000 one zero
minutes after departure". There was something in there about getting my
filed route later, but I didn't catch the exact wording.

I'm guessing he said something to the effect of "expect filed route".
Another possibility is "expect further clearance at XXXX". Given the
information you supplied, it's a coin toss which :-)

But I'm curious about what would have happened if I'd lost contact on the
way to GEE and it had been real IFR.

You would have whipped out your laptop, fired up a web browser, and gone
to

http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/c...4cfr91_00.html,

where you would have read:

91.185 *IFR operations: Two-way radio communications failure.
[...]
(c)(3) Leave clearance limit.
[...]
(ii) If the clearance limit is not a fix from which an approach begins, leave
the clearance limit at the expect-further-clearance time if one has been
received, or if none has been received, upon arrival over the clearance
limit, and proceed to a fix from which an approach begins and commence
descent or descent and approach as close as possible to the estimated time of
arrival as calculated from the filed or amended (with ATC) estimated time en
route.

Next, you would have slapped yourself for not paying more attention to
your original clearance and take a guess at whether you had a EFC time
or not, and if you did, what it was. For the moment, let's assume what
the controller said was "Expect filed route after GEE". If so, assuming
your filed route included GEE, you would have flown your cleared route,
climbing to 6000 10 minutes after you took off.

The interesting question is what you do when you get to your
destination. Do you hold until your ETA, or do you just go ahead and
fly the aporoach and land ASAP, as has been espoused so often on this
newsgroup.

What makes it interesting in my mind is twofold: 1) I have no idea if
Goderich is in an area of radar coverage, and 2) I have little
experience flying in Canada. I think I've got a good feel for how ATC
works in the US, and feel comfortable exercising my PIC authority to
play fast and loose with the last sentence of 91.185(c)(3)(ii). I can
only assume that 91.185 is basicly an echo of ICAO procedures and the
rules in Canada are the essentially the same, but I'd personally be more
inclined to play a literal interpretation in Canadian airspace.





Geneseo VOR was my clearance limit,
so what would I do if I couldn't go back to Rochester VFR? Assume I would
have got my further clearance at GEE, so after I got there squawk 7600 and
head off to Goderich? Hope that my transponder was still working and head
back to Rochester to do the ILS?