I agree. I was flying in FL last spring with some convective activity in
the area. ATC had me on a course directly into some dark looking clouds
that the strikefinder said were active. I asked ATC to deviate and they
told me to wait for a minute. They called me back in a minute and told me
to deviate at my discretion. I was just about to call them back and tell
them I was deviating whether they liked it or not (in nice terms of
course), and i would have.

"PA28Rdrvr" wrote in
:

Hello, I understand what your saying but if your not sure you can
remain vfr you should file IFR. I have never had any difficulty in
getting clearance to deviate flight path to go around build-ups. In
fact, during the flight that I was referring to in my original post,
the controller stated Radar contact lost (he never had it to begin
with) and for me to do what I needed to do. I expect that he had no
other traffic in the area. I was told to report being re established
on the victor airway, which I did. I have strike finder and
capability to download nexrad to the Garmin 430 which helps some. I'm
based in SE US so afternoon CBs are common and you sort of learn to
deal with them through experience. Best advice, as you said, stay out
of the build-ups. "Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
"PA28Rdrvr" wrote:
Weather was VFR but lots of convective activity, sky broken.
[...]
It's amazing that I have become, over time, uncomfortable going VFR
cross
country.

With lots of convective activity, I'd rather be VFR. I don't want to
fly into a CB, so VFR will allow me to visually navigate around the
buildups. IFR, I'm at the mercy of the controller as to where I go.
Once he puts me into a cloud, I can no longer see what's ahead. My
first hint that the benign-looking CU I flew into has turned into
something nastier may be my head bouncing off the cabin top.