"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...
Being on the runway without an IFR clearance is not a problem.

... unless you can't take off without an IFR clearance, and there's
incoming.
But I suppose the controller would take care of that when it happened.

It just seems that the end of the runway is a bad place to be unless
you're
ready to go.

Not sure why there's such a strong aversion to this. In Europe at least,
the rate-limiting step is often coordination with the facility that will
control after departure. The clearance is not issued until that has been
done, and the window that that facility wants to open up is usually quite
short. Hence it's not unusual at a quiet controlled airport to be given the
IFR clearance while lined up on the runway, and a take-off clearance
immediately afterwards. If the clearance were given at the hold, it could
take minutes to backtrack the runway and get airborne -- it's not unusual to
get such a clearance a couple of minutes before the end of a flow management
slot.

Julian Scarfe