Roy Smith wrote:

This is a pretty common thing for NY Approach to say, but as I study the
chart now, I don't think it's legit.

It's not legit. You're right. IAF or vectors to final.


The alternative would be to select IGN as the IAF from the approach menu,
execute that, then go into the flight plan and select direct to FARAN.
Except that it takes a while to figure that out, and I'm not even sure if
the box will let you do it.

Yep, it will let you do that. I just did it on the simulator for
this approach. I've had to do similar things in the past at Dulles.