But please tell me you only do this in good weather.
Absolutely. However, in IMC I wouldn't expect to be given the kind of track shortnening I was talking about, as we'd all be flying the STAR as per normal. Finally, I'll state for the record that I don't accept track shortening requests when within 30 miles of the field anyway - unless there is a compelling operational requirement from ATC for me to do so. In reality, it might save 30 seconds to 1 minute on total trip time, and for what?!? It's simply not worth messing up the game plan just for the sake of a 1 minute saving, but unfortunately a lot of my flying companions seem to be hard-wired into accepting track shortening no matter what.
Apologies to one and all for the thread drift, by the way.