argh -- flight plan routes

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 07:46:38 -0500, Roy Smith wrote:

In article ,
wrote:

In the northeast there are 2 sets of "preferred routes".

thera are TEC routes, and there are preferred routes.

Which one you get will often depend on your altitude.

This is one of the more brain-dead things the FAA does. There may be good
reasons why, from an internal FAA point of view, there are two sets of
routes. From a user perspective, however, it's absurd that they're not
folded into a single table.


Well, it's just a case of separate interests, I believe.

The low altitude TEC routes are hammered out by the respective
approach control facilities sitting around a table and (in the
northeast, at least) listening to how the 800lb gorillas (NY,
Philadelphia, Washington, and Boston TRACONs) want to route traffic.

The JFK sector, for example, accepts no handoffs from Bradley going
south, so Bradley has to hand off to PVD, who then hands off to NY,
and the pilot is scratching his head wondering why, especially since
going the other way, the route is completely different. NY gives
their stuff to whomever they want. Somebody launching at an airport
20 miles away from BDL, who happens to be in the NY sector (OXC for
example) gets a completely different route.

The higher altitudes are center's responsibility, and their interests
are totally different.

At least that's how I understand it.

But I think you make a good point - they could all be in one table by
altitude.

wrote:

In the northeast there are 2 sets of "preferred routes".

thera are TEC routes, and there are preferred routes.

Which one you get will often depend on your altitude.

I agree with you that the route you get depends on the altitude (to some
degree), however there must be three "preferred routes" in the Northeast
US: The preferred, the TECs, and the ones you actually receive.

I can tell you based on numerous flights into Boston's Logan that neither
the TEC nor the preferred is what one receives when one files with a TAS of
185 and an altitude of 11,000.

--
Peter













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On 29 Mar 2005 11:38:34 -0800, wrote:


ventmode
I am an inexperienced instrument pilot and I just don't understand why
we file routes on our flight plans at all!

I never get what I filed, anyway, and it's not uncommon that the route
I actually get shares not a single waypoint with what I filed.


It is interesting to see the variations in ATC behavior throughout the
country. Where do you fly? I fly out of the NW Chicago suburbs and
find the ORD controllers to be relatively consistent with their
initial route assignments. I probably get my requested enroute
portion 85+% of the time.

-Nathan

As you gain experience in a given area of the country, you will
eventually learn what they like to do in that particular part of the
country. Then you can get to a point where you can guess what's coming
maybe three times out of four. That's it. Your chances of getting
cleared as filed in busy airspace you're unfamiliar with are
effectively zero. The only time you can get what you want, you can
also get direct. The stuff in the A&FD is worthless.

You shouldn't just file direct because, well, you just shouldn't. It
will make Don Brown mad. It will make your CFII wonder why he spent
all that time teaching you about choosing routes.

Actually, when I don't feel like trying to outguess the controllers,
that's exactly what I do. At best, I'll throw in a couple of fixes
along the route so that every controller can have a couple of fixes he
recognizes.

In real life, controllers assume you have a GPS and can go direct to
any fix. They don't care if the GPS is IFR approved because they can
only approve GPS direct when they can provide RADAR monitoring, and
there's no regulation covering what you can and can't use for enroute
nav anyway.

Michael

On 29 Mar 2005 14:01:07 -0800, "Michael"
wrote:

As you gain experience in a given area of the country, you will
eventually learn what they like to do in that particular part of the
country. Then you can get to a point where you can guess what's coming
maybe three times out of four. That's it. Your chances of getting
cleared as filed in busy airspace you're unfamiliar with are
effectively zero. The only time you can get what you want, you can
also get direct. The stuff in the A&FD is worthless.


there are routes in certain areas in the northeast that are just about
guaranteed to be what the AFD publishes, and in busy airspace (which
of course is where the TEC routes are)

wrote in news:1112125114.549042.263410
@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:


ventmode
I am an inexperienced instrument pilot and I just don't understand why
we file routes on our flight plans at all!

I never get what I filed, anyway, and it's not uncommon that the route
I actually get shares not a single waypoint with what I filed.

This depends almost entirely on where you are flying. I almost always
get 'cleared as filed', and often after departure get cleared direct to
destination. My guess is you're in the northeast, probably relatively
close to NYC. That isn't representative of most of the country.

--
Regards,

Stan

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." B. Franklin

File whatever you want. It is an exercise in familiarity with the
airspace to file a route.If I don't file direct, I usually file VOR to
VOR, I don't like refrering to airways, that way I learn where the
VOR's are. But nothing wrong with filing, and flying, direct. After
all, direct is the shortest route. The CFII gods are all hung up on
"routes". (LIke the air on "Victor 81" is somehow "better" than other
nearby air). And like in "yeah we took Victor 491 ALL the way to
Butler". "OOoooh, I am sooo impressed". I suppose that was like way
hard to do, LOTs harder than going direct or some OTHER less prestigous
route like VICTOR 13 or Victor 69.

I was in Gary Indiana and had to file IFR to get over to Moline and
onto Colorado. This is through Chicago airspace, very busy. After
carefully previewing my route, talking to FSS, I filed a nice looking
route. I was given a clearance for a different route, and when I became
airborne, I was cleared for something else again. Nice thing was they
gave me my own controller, no one else on the freq. He wanted to know
all about my Husky.

It depends upon where you depart and where you arrive.

Departing out of or arriving into high traffic areas, you can usually
expect a canned routing. This is to help the understaffed controllers
keep the flow moving.

It depends upon what lies in between the departure and arrival points.

You will not get a routing along the Lake Michigan shoreline during
AirVenture. You can overfly or underfly the CBAS VFR, but IFR they will
send you around to the west and south.

The "computer" will not accept your routing. This is one of those secret
things that a controller will tell you when you inqire as to why your
"Cleared as filed" flight plan is being amended. He/she doesn't know
why, it is due to something further down the line towards your destination.

Sometimes you can successfully argue to stay on your filed route with
the caveat that you will have to negotiate with each and every
controller at each handoff. Each will try to amend your clearance, just
like the first one. They, too, will not know why the "computer" will not
accept your routing.

Do not accept an amended clearance without first looking at it and
determining if it will adversely affect the safety of flight.
Does it add time and distance affecting your FAA mandated fuel status?
Does it place you over water without floation gear?
Does the amended routing place you in an area of adverse weather?
You do not have to accept their routing, you can propose alternate
routes more to your liking.

john smith wrote:
Do not accept an amended clearance without first looking at it and
determining if it will adversely affect the safety of flight.
Does it add time and distance affecting your FAA mandated fuel status?

You can certainly try playing the "minimum fuel" card, but that may or may
not get you the routing you desire. Landing at an airport short of your
destination to refuel is always a possibility.

This is due to a lack of understanding of how ATC routing works, and
also because very few instructors understand it themselves. Check the
preferred routes in the back of the AF/D. If none exists, check the
STAR's for the destination and enroute airport. You can't go blasting
through a class B airspace, even under IFR. Most flights are radar
vectored in these airspaces, and ATC wants you to arrive at clearly
defined fixes.


wrote in news:1112125114.549042.263410
@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:


ventmode
I am an inexperienced instrument pilot and I just don't understand why
we file routes on our flight plans at all!

I never get what I filed, anyway, and it's not uncommon that the route
I actually get shares not a single waypoint with what I filed.

It is an interesting game to try to guess what they want you to do,
file that, and see if I get it back, but I so seldom win at it. I even
use the trick of, yes, filing what they gave me last time, but no,
even
that is not sure-fire.

It's not that I'm complaining, but, okay, I'm complaining a bit.

- is the route box in the flight plan form just an anachronism from
a more flexible time in history
- why shouldn't I just file DIRECT?
- The equipment I have access to is /A. If I did file direct, will
the routing I get be /A friendly? This is perhaps tricky and illegal,
because I know that I couldn't actually fly the direct route I asked
for. (well, that's a total side discussion, I know, what I can do with
radar vectors and a VFR GPS)

This is all only a minor annoyance, except for when I am sitting in
the
runup area with a newly picked up clearance, trying to figure out
where
those fixes are while the hobbs meter is running.

/ventmode

-- dave j
-- jacobowitz73 --at-- yahoo --dot-- com