Military vs. Civilian Fix and Procedure Names

[Mark Hargrove]

Does the US military use different names for fixes and procedures than we civilians use?

I don't know if anybody else has checked out the "Combat Pilot" multi-player simulation site sponsored by Saitek/Mad Catz/Thunderhawk Studios. It's an interesting concept, but there are some very strange things going on with their training missions. In particular, the routes flown for the training missions use real fix names, but the fix names used aren't where the "charts" in the game show them. For T38-C training out of Sheppard AFB (KSPS), for example, they have a departure procedure (that doesn't exist in real life) that flies to BLAKE intersection, then tracks out to BURDN intersection -- neither of these intersections (in real life) are within several hundred miles of KSPS (one of them is 1200 miles away, in New Jersey!). When I pointed this out in their forums I was told that I shouldn't expect "military airspace" to use the same fix names as civilian airspace.

That was a big surprise to me, so I thought I'd ask here. Does anybody know?

-M.