Should you tell Tower you're departing IFR

"John Clonts" wrote in message
ups.com...

or should they just know it already?

I was departing Sugarland (KSGR) yesterday, after having gotten my
clearance from ground control.


How much time elapsed between getting your clearance and taxiing for
departure?



Tower assigned me runway heading (this
was about 45 minutes later as there was MUCH traffic waiting in line
for takeoffs) and handed me off to departure.


Do they normally send VFR aircraft to departure?



I had trouble getting a
word in edgewise, but when I eventually did, departure said "change
squawk to 0044". Later a different controller (but same freq I
believe) asked my if I was VFR???? I told him "Negative, N7NZ is
cleared Industry departure then as filed, currently on 270 vector". He
said, "roger, cleared direct IDU", and the rest of the flight was
uneventful (and unambiguously IFR). This was all in VMC.


How did you come to be on a 270 vector? Sugarland has only a north-south
runway and the tower assigned runway heading. Who then assigned a west
heading and for what purpose?



Later I thought that maybe the tower didn't realize I was IFR when he
cleared me for takeoff, and that fouled something up with departure.


If some time elapsed between issuance of IFR clearance and taxiing for
departure ground control may have forgotten that you were an IFR departure
and prepared a new VFR strip for local control. Did you request taxi right
after getting your clearance? If not, did you tell ground you were IFR when
you called for taxi?



Or, is there another reason I would have immediately been given a new
squawk code like that? I seem to remember that 0xxx squawks are
"local" or something like that. Yet I believe I then kept that same
0044 the entire remaining duration of the flight (through Houston
Center and then Austin Approach to my destination 44TE).


Are you sure the code was 0044? The National Beacon Code Allocation Plan
assigns codes 0100-0477 to terminal operations, it doesn't assign the block
0000-0077 to any purpose (which I find rather odd). Since your flight was
entirely within Houston Center you should have been assigned a code from one
of ZHU's internal departure blocks; 45xx, 46xx, or 47xx.