"bsalai" wrote in message
...

This happened to me very early in my IFR experience (it's still early, but
this was very early. I got cleared to an intermediate fix, "expect no
delay." They did not assign a hold. I had never gotten anything like this
before (I had hardly gotten anything at all before) and I asked for an
expect further clearance time, and they didn't have one. Since I hadn't
run into this, I made them give me an EFC time, they finally did, but it
took a lot of work (apparently) and they were clearly not happy.

Seems like I was wrong. Should I simply have proceeded to the fix, and if
I lost radio contact prior to getting there, proceeded as filed
immediately?


Yes. This is straight out of FAR 91.185:


§ 91.185 IFR operations: Two-way radio communications failure.

(a) General. Unless otherwise authorized by ATC, each pilot who has two-way
radio communications failure when operating under IFR shall comply with the
rules of this section.

(b) [snip]

(c) IFR conditions. If the failure occurs in IFR conditions, or if paragraph
(b) of this section cannot be complied with, each pilot shall continue the
flight according to the following:

(1) Route. (i) By the route assigned in the last ATC clearance received;

(ii) [snip]

(iii) [snip]

(iv) [snip]

(2) [snip]

(3) Leave clearance limit. (i) [snip]

(ii) If the clearance limit is not a fix from which an approach begins,
leave the clearance limit at the expect-further-clearance time if one has
been received, or if none has been received, upon arrival over the clearance
limit, and proceed to a fix from which an approach begins and commence
descent or descent and approach as close as possible to the estimated time
of arrival as calculated from the filed or amended (with ATC) estimated time
en route.