IFR Flight Plan Starting at a VOR?

[midlifeflyer]

I had answered "affirmative" and she responded "cleared to XXX upon reaching 3900'" would I legally have been able to climb into IMC to 3900' ? Seems like I'm still under VFR rules until reaching 3900' which includes maintaining VFR cloud clearances

The piece you may be missing, is that when you say yes, ATC comes back with, “cleared to the XYZ airport…”. Once you have your IFR clearance you are no longer VFR. You are IFR.

 

[Palmpilot]

The MEF is giving you a whole 300' feet of clearance based on the state of the FAA's obstacle information at the time the chart was published. OTOH, if you are already above the OROCA or MORA, with their minimum 1000' obstacle clearance, you probably won't hear the question.

Question back to you: have you used the MEF method to enter the clouds in an unfamiliar area?

No, because I have always been starting from well below those altitudes.

A couple of examples in which I have done this:

From east of the Olympic Mountains, the visibility toward Olympia VOR was good enough below the ceiling that I could see that there would be nothing to hit as I climbed in that direction, and this was confirmed by the sectional.

On departure from TVL back when they had a tower, the winds were favoring takeoff to the south, but it wouldn't have been safe to use the ODP in that direction due to the climb gradient and a reported squall line in that direction, so I took off VFR for a downwind departure under the ceiling, and flew out over the lake to request a popup clearance. The lake was obviously long enough to accommodate my climb, and I made sure that I stayed away from the rocks by following the localizer, while making sure that I didn't stray to the east of it.

 

[Palmpilot]

The piece you may be missing, is that when you say yes, ATC comes back with, “cleared to the XYZ airport…”. Once you have your IFR clearance you are no longer VFR. You are IFR.

When I answer that question, I also like to tell them what route I'm going to use for obstacle avoidance.

 

[AlleyCat67]

The piece you may be missing, is that when you say yes, ATC comes back with, “cleared to the XYZ airport…”. Once you have your IFR clearance you are no longer VFR. You are IFR.

Gotcha. My error was thinking that ATC would give me a “cleared XYZ upon reaching <altitude>” after I reported being able maintain obstacle/terrain clearance. Like you say, they would instead issue my IFR clearance immediately at my present altitude, together with a “climb/maintain” to something higher than the MVA.