"Bob Gardner" wrote in message ...
Afterthoughts. If you had descended below radar coverage, the correct ATC
transmission would have been "Radar contact lost," not "Radar service
terminated," and you would have still been IFR. A controller cannot
unilaterally terminate your IFR status.

Bob, FWIW, we hear "radar service terminated" all the time whilst
on IFR flight plans, and we are still IFR. All it means (around here)
is that radar separation, traffic advisories, etc are no longer being
provided, and we must follow the non-radar provisions (make position
reports etc). "Radar contact lost" to me might mean he's not picking
up my transponder at the moment, but expects to see other traffic at
my altitude or to pick me up again shortly ie I can still expect some
radar services. Again, FWIW.

From reading the original post, my guess is that there was an ambiguous
situation because the pilot filed an IFR flight plan to one destination,
then continued doing approaches at other airports. If he didn't ask to
amend his flight plan to a different destination or file a new IFR flight
plan, the controller may have been treating the continuation of his
flight to other airports as VFR.

A good caution to us all to clarify our status when there's reason to
believe it might be unclear.

Cheers,
Sydney