In the Bay Area you can file TEC and this is essentially an abbreviated
filing. You only give origin and destination, no altitude, route or any of
the SAR stuff. It works between any airports in the Norcal area, and
maybe one or two outside (e.g. KSTS). You can *usually* do this
with ground when you would normally request to open your pre-filed
clearance. However I've had it refused when the destination tower
was busy (or couldn't be bothered?).

You can also do a sort of hybrid, where you prefile through FSS or DUATS
and put TER in the comments, omitting the route and altitude. However I
once got a long lecture from the briefer at Oakland about why this isn't
really TER and TER means something completely different. He filed it
for me anyway and I forgot the substance of what he said...

The logic in both cases is that whatever you file, you'll get what you get,
so why waste your own time and everyone else's with a load of detail that
will get trashed anyway.

John

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
. ..

"Snowbird" wrote in message
om...
OK, one thing I've never really understood is the point
of Tower Enroute Control. Maybe it doesn't apply much
here in the Midwest where there's space between TRACONs.

There are two places TEC is used and it means different things
in each place. In both, it's a procedure put in place during the
staffing shortages after the controller strike to allow IFR's to be
hadned off from tower to tower (well approach to approach) without
involving center. This was a good thing when center controllers
weren't up to the traffic.

In California, it's a shorthand filing as near as I can determine.
You actually ask for a TEC clearance which simplifies things.

In the NorthEast (from Richmond on North) it's just the standard
IFR routes. While they map out all this TEC routing in the AF/D,
it really is the way low level traffic is always handled....you just
file a regular IFR plan and you get routed through the miriad of
overlapping approach controls.