What an Interesting Thread
What an interesting and informative thread, I'm looking forward to this service and hopefully will learn how to use it propelry and with minimal irritation for ATC.
Rule 1: Always file flight plan.
Rule 2: See rule one.
By the way, with the greatest of respect, I suspect that the $150 flight plan figure is calculated by dividing the fixed and variable, plus direct and indirect costs of the operation by the number of VFR plans submitted.
This is erroneous because the indirect and fixed costs will still remain if zero VFR flight plans are filed. The correct way to calculate such a figure is to divide the direct plus variable costs attributable to the filing of VFR flight plans by the total number of plans.
In other words, great chunks of ATC costs will NOT disappear if VFR people like me don't submit plans.