"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message

Now you're whistling a different tune.

Overall I think I agree with the points you are making except I just do not
think it is reasonable for ATC to say "Potomac refuses to work you" when
they just issued a clearance through that airspace 10 minutes ago. If
Potomac never works through flights then do not issue clearances -- it is
one thing if the clearance were issued 500 miles away but a flight
departing HGR ought to be processed in a way that knows if Potomac will
accept through clearances.

And therein lies the issue here... legal or not, safe or not, is just seems
absolutely poor service for a sector to flat-out "refuse" an airplane with
no explanation right after takeoff. I think at the minimum some better
explanation should be given to the pilot to understand what his happening
and let him propose an alternate plan to ATC.

The fact that ATC said "State intentions" rather than offer a re-route
suggests ATC was surprised by this as well.

And most important of all, I suspect this may have been a subtle suggestion
to the IFR pilot to cancel and go VFR and I think that is particularly
disappointing and frankly unacceptable.

"State Intentions" usually occurs only when ATC has no clue what you want to
do or wants to give you some hint as to what they want you to do... neither
seems appropriate here.

--------------------
Richard Kaplan

www.flyimc.com