Snowbird wrote:

wrote in message ...
Snowbird wrote:

My point was to the chap who seemed to imply, if you have to file
enroute, you didn't brief properly preflight...t'aint true. Mommy
Nature doesn't seem to read the TAFs.

Nope, the chap was giving a setup for how to best guestimate where to have a composite flight plan
convert from VFR to IFR.

Hmmmm....FWIW, if that was your intent, these words:
***begin quote***
If you don't have a pretty good idea of where you are likely to encounter
IMC en route, you haven't done a very good job of flight planning.
***end quote***

don't do a very good job of conveying that intent.

Sounds a lot more to me like you're saying, if you encounter IMC
unexpectedly and need to file a pop-up clearance, you haven't done
a very good job of flight planning.


That is exactly what I am saying.


I disagree, but of course if your intent was just to say something
like "use your preflight briefing to guesstimate where you might
encounter IMC, then file a composite flight plan with the IFR portion
starting where your briefing leads you to believe the clouds will
be", that's one way to handle the problem.

Thanks for improving my intent.



FWIW, I haven't found composite flight plans too useful. Seem
to cause some kind of SNAFU with the ATC computers where the strip
doesn't get sent to the right facility at the right time. I have
better luck just filing separate flight plans with a departure
time delayed by my ETE to the point where I plan to activate the
IFR plan.

And it still doesn't address the issue of how to get an IFR clearance
enroute when you need one.

It doesn't? One of us doesn't understand a composite flight plan.