Editor's Note: This article is the second installment in a five-part series by Master CFI/CFII/MEI Gary Reeves, which discusses the most common mistakes he sees good IFR pilots and CFIIs keep making (and how you can avoid them).
Pilots often depart under Visual Flight Rules because they learned in training that it is easier and faster. Sometimes, even air traffic control will ask if a pilot can take off VFR. In most cases, this thinking is antiquated, originating from a time before it was so easy to complete your run-up and get your clearance via your mobile device.
If you are younger than 25 years old, you may not believe that phones were once attached via metal cords to poles outside a fixed-base operator (and even required coins to operate). A pilot would have to call flight service to get a clearance and void time and then run to the airplane and rush to the end of the runway before the clearance expired. My, how times have changed.
Today, with the relative ease of obtaining an IFR clearance, continuing to depart VFR poses two unnecessary risks.
The latter happened to me one time in Pennsylvania. I had clearance for an LPV approach to runway 24 at a non-towered field. The weather conditions were overcast at 300 feet, with winds from 240 degrees at 20 knots. New York Center told me there was no observed traffic, and I switched to CTAF.
At 350 feet, I saw a bright white light in front of us, grabbed the flight controls from my student, and jerked the plane up and hard to the right. I felt a hard bump and did an emergency climb. I was sure we had been in a mid-air collision. A minute later, while talking to New York Center, a Bonanza came on the frequency and said, “Bonanza XXXXX, departed XXX runway six, would like to pick up my IFR!”
Yep, you read that right. Departing a class G airport with a 20-knot tailwind into a 300-foot overcast without a clearance (or even making a CTAF call) is totally legal. It also happens to be the easiest way to kill my favorite instructor, me!