Ok, that's a good point indeed - why bother with the remark if I don't
want direct clearances? My original intention was to allow me to go
direct to airports that I happen to know have not moved.. no danger
there. It was direct to intersections that I had no particular prior
knowledge of that caused me some concern. I had never intended to _ask_
to go direct to such.

I'll save you the trouble of pointing out that that's inconstent and
that ATC is never going to make such a distinction. I realize that..
now. Basically, what's occurred was me going through a bit of a
real-world learning phase and fully pondering the nuances of VFR GPS use
in IFR.

Your implication that I haven't fully expressed my thoughts on this
question in this thread is on the money. Anyway, the discussion moved
down a tangent - I hadn't really intended to complain about this -
though I guess I did, reading my post now - it threw me for a bit but I
decided how to deal with it.

I realized nobody's had an answer to my original question - how far
off-course can you be before being officially violated?

Roy Smith wrote:

Paul Folbrecht wrote:

this had me wondering if ATC is even making any
distinction between IFR/non-IFR GPS!.)


The short answer is "probably not". Like I said, controllers are not
pilots, and I suspect most of them have no idea about the regulatory issues
surrounding GPS certifications (nor should they).

There is one official way you communicate to ATC what navigational
capabilities your aircraft has, that that's the equipment suffix on your
type code. File /U, and they'll give you clearances you can execute with
VOR receivers. File /A, and they'll expect you to be able to identify DME
fixes. File /G, and they'll expect you to be able to go direct to any
en-route fix and fly GPS approaches.

On the other hand, if you file /U and put "VFR GPS on board", you're
leaving it to them to guess what you want, since "VFR GPS on board" has no
official meaning. The most common guess seems to be "treat me as if I had
filed /G", so they do. It turns out that this is indeed what most people
want, so it works out and everybody's happy. You seem to be wanting
something different, but I'm not sure what it is.