"Roy Smith" wrote in message ...

Exactly. It's parallel to paragraph (b). There really should be some
questions on the private pilot written about how to parse the text of
federal regulations :-)

Yeah, it's also the abysmal typography of many of the FAR publishers. If
they indented the paragraphs, it would be clearer.

My question with this rule has always been the part of (b)(1) that says
"airport of intended departure." I've never been sure whether the
inclusion of the word "intended" was to preclude unintentional departures
from the rule, or to keep you from calibrating your VOR and then departing
from some other airport.