Note the first paragraph. The rules are to protect the IFR folks. The
rules as I see it are not stupid.

Sorry, but I disagree. Any rule that forces me to evade or avoid
basketball-sized clouds with the same urgency as 70-story CBs is stupid.

I stand to be corrected, but if I remember correctly, you stated in your
ORIGINAL post you were at 4000 feet circling the cloud, which is an IFR
cruise altitude.

No, the puffies were forming at "around 4000 feet." I don't remember the
precise altitude, but it was some odd height, like 3700 feet.

Regardless, we were over rural Iowa. Would I have been playing around the
puffies in Chicago airspace? Of course not. But I was in some of the most
unpopulated airspace in the country.

Why would you want to chance an IFR flight popping out of that yugo size
cloud?

I don't think it's possible to compute the odds of a mid-air collision in
this area, let alone one caused by an IFR plane popping out of Yugo-sized
cloud 300 feet below his assigned altitude. In fact, I would guess that
the odds of being hit by an asteroid in flight are about the same.

Not sure if you monitor the rec.student newsgroup, but I posted my IFR
experiences today, and there was a VFR pilot in conditions that at best
were marginal for VFR flying.

I pop in over there very occasionally. I'll have to check out your thread.

Thanks for your input. I understand your points, but it's the degree and
severity of your reading of the "clear of clouds" rule with which I
disagree.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"