On Apr 9, 10:48 pm, "Travis Marlatte"
wrote:
This didn't cause any problems other than some additional radio traffic but
it caught me off guard. Let me know what you think...

As many people already stated, once you hear the magic words "cleared
to", it means you are already in the system, under IFR (you can now
fly in the clouds and do whatever they told you to do)

I had another situation where it was a little more unclear, when
departing from an uncontrolled field, IFR plan on file:

70V: "jax center, Cessna 70V at xxxx, would like to pick up IFR
clearance to FTY"

JAX:"70V, squawk 1234, climb to 5000, I'll have the rest of your
clearance in a few minutes"

5000 feet would put me in the clouds, and having not heard the words
"cleared to", I wasn't sure if I was considered to be flying IFR at
this point, so I told the controller that 5000 would put me in the
clouds, and he responded to go ahead, that I was already IFR.

So you can be IFR already even without having received your complete
clearance.
When the controller issues a "Climb to 5000", it IS a clearance, even
though it does not tell you where you are going (yet).