It seems like the minute they have airline traffic the airlines want to get IFR handling from t/o to t/d. Is it safer? Probably, but infinitesimally so.
I just went skiing up to Mammoth a couple of weeks ago. Airfield is uncontrolled, yet both Alaska's Q400 and Uniteds RJ900 fly in there all day long. They arrive on some LNAV and obviously have an IFR release and void time as they depart, but I know from experience that the radar service is patchy at best up in the mountains until you get some altitude and can check in with ATC. So in essence, on bad weather days, they're taking part in the 'big sky' game. There probably isn't an IFR equipped Cub without a radar out there in the soup, but technically there could be. Yet, it all seems to work somehow. And as technology and ADS-B gets more implemented, the need for ATC will go down further.
Last edited by AdamFrisch; 2nd Apr 2013 at 18:25.