Andrew Gideon wrote:



I usually say "ready to go, IFR". I also mention that I'm IFR when I
request my taxi instructions. I'd prefer an extra half-second of radio
time to the possibility of confusion.

KCDW modified their procedures a while back in a similar way. They no
longer provide the squawk code with the clearance information; it's
[almost] always "clearance on release". I asked once, and was told that
there was a problem with people taking off IFR and the tower not realizing
they were IFR. Holding back the squawk apparently blocks that.

It doesn't, it helps the tower hide the fact they released an IFR
without a release, which is an operational error. When I worked at GFK
the vast majority of our IFR traffic was from UND and they almost always
used the small parallel runway, mixed in with all the VFR's. To prevent
an inadvertant release of an UND IFR aircraft we would not issue your
clearance until you were done with your runup. It worked for us because
every clearance was as filed.



*Why* (or "how") this occurred is a part of the back story that -
unfortunately - I was not told. I'm still curious, should anyone here
know.

They had a deal, simple as that, just like one of our guys.