John Harper wrote:

I figure that on the way
out of a Class B they'll give you what THEY want so you don't achieve much
filing a specific route anyway.

Almost. If you're familiar with their practices, though, it sometimes helps to file what you normally get. If you don't they often have to dork around with your flight plan which delays your IFR release (especially when you launch on a long direct-to segment straight from busy airspace). This is what the controller told me.



By the way, you did include a fix for each ARTCC (I don't think it has to
be close to the boundary, just something that the previous ARTCC computer
will recognize so it can process the flight plan).


No, that's kind of the point I'm making. I didn't include one and they didn't
give me one. Of course PYE is kind of a major thing - I've heard on Channel
9 being cleared to it from North Dakota. Not sure if OLM has quite such
cosmic significance though.


Cosmic enough. The ZOA computer recognized it. Otherwise you would have sat on the ground until they put in a fix close to your destination that is in their database.

As far as I understand, the important thing is that each ARTCC computer has to be able to draw a course line through its airspace. So the line has to begin and end at fixes that it recognizes. Otherwise you get a re-route. If you file to/from high-altitude VOR's you should be good to go. And I am guessing that each ARTCC computer recognizes all the VORs and many of the airports in the adjacent center's airspace. So going from Oakland Center to Seattle Center should not require any extra fixes.