On Mar 2, 5:11 am, "Steven P. McNicoll"
wrote:
On Mar 1, 11:51 pm, wrote:



Recently I tried to depart from an non-tower airport that has no
instrument approach procedure, and hence no instrument departure. I
was told that I could not get a clearance on the ground, even with
VIFNO etc., and that I would have to depart VFR and pick my clearance
up while airborne. The recommendation made to me by both TRACON and
local FSDO for departing IFR with a low ceiling was to get a special
VFR clearance into the towered airport 6 miles away [which has an
approach and then depart IFR from there.

My question is, if I take responsibility for staying away from the
rocks [assume a low ceiling, above the tops of small hills, but below
minimum vectoring altitude], shouln't I be able to get a clearance on
the ground?

What's VIFNO? Did they say why they couldn't issue a clearance while
you were on the ground? It's not prohibited by FAAO 7110.65.


VIFNO = Void if not off by [sorry- old habits...]

Some specfics will be helpful now: the airport is Flabob, KRIR, field
elevation 764 MSL. I spoke with several folks and each seemed to
have a different take. The TRACON controller was the most helpful/
sympathetic; he told me his Minimum Vectoring Altitude in that area is
3200 [in addition to a small hill off the departure end of RWY 24
there are taller rocks to the North]. I heard from both the
controller and local pilots that zero-zero departures used to be
permitted until about 2 years ago and since then clearances while on
the ground have been unavilable. Now the airport is only 10 NM SE of
Ontario...so I'm guessing that my IFR departure off Flabob negatively
impacts their inbounds into ONT until they have identifed me on radar
or I'm through the MVA. I have suspected this is the funcamental I'm
not permitted a clearance and that until 2 years ago there may have
been a Letter of Agreement between ONT tower and SoCal departure that
permitted Flabob IFR departures. If so, am I not getting a raw deal
on "first come, first, served"?

BTW, the FSDO guy was the least helpful: "No instrument departure, no
clearances on the ground." When I protested that this was clearly in
error he just repeated what he said, adding some impatient attitude.
That was the end of that conversation.