PilotEdge Forums

Today the KSNA CLNC controller told me I couldn't file IFR KSNA to KCRQ with a route of KRAUZ V23 OCN. He said it had to be just V23 OCN. I didn't debate the point online, but now I can't find any reason why that would not be a legitimate route for a GPS equipped aircraft. When the departure airport is not on the Victor airway I always want to file a route that gives exactly where I will enter the airway if either lost comm or if ATC doesn't give vectors to intercept. I do it all the time and I'm a fairly experienced ASEL/AMEL Commercial, Instrument pilot. Filing the intersection doesn't mean ATC can't give vectors, in fact they usually do. It happened to be the I-02 rating but that should be irrelevant. What am I missing? Is this just a PilotEdge thing?

It's a TEC route thing.

TEC routes cannot be modified in any way (real world or PE).

Your logic makes 100% sense but unfortunately doesn't apply within the TEC system. Note your clearance will have a departure heading and that heading will cross V23, in a NORDO (and only a NORDO situation) you could join the airway off that heading.

In the real world you can file anything you like, of course, but the clearance you'll be issued might be different than what you filed.

The only reason the controller would've pushed back on you in this case is because the I-2 rating specifically tells you what route to file for (as part of preparing you for starting to work with TEC routes).

The rating text says:

File 'V23 OCN' for your route, with an enroute altitude of 5000....

Had you not been doing the I-2, the controller would (or at least should) have issued the clearance to fly hdg xxx, vectors V23, then as filed. In this case, he/she was simply trying to get you to do what the rating called for.

Thanks Peter and Keith for the fast and thoughtful replies. Really helps. I'm a ForeFlight power user, and have it linked to FSX. So when I was planning this route the recently cleared ATC routes came up and of course CSTN30 was a preferred route. When you select that route it comes up KSNA KRAUZ DANAH OCN KCRQ. Also, I was expecting a clearance with radar vectors to V23 whether I filed KRAUZ V23 OCN or just V23 OCN, so it shouldn't matter.

Full disclosure, I happened to fail that attempt (rightfully) because I missed the CLNC controller giving me a heading of 175 to fly. He was dealing with a rogue kid online and it very distracting to both of us. He started my clearance, stopped and started over, but the second time he didn't give the heading and he had to stop and re issue the altitudes all because of some distractions I think. I read back the clearance WITHOUT a heading but said "expect radar vectors" and he said read back correct. It's not unusual where I fly, (Melbourne - Orlando FL) to get a clearance that says expect radar vectors, and then the TWR gives me an initial heading departing their Class D before turning me over to DEP. So in this case, KSNA TWR didn't give me a heading so I flew runway heading and was expecting a vector from DEPARTURE. When I came up on SOCAL DEP he asked what heading I was flying and as soon as I said runway heading he failed me. That's fine and appropriate. I did miss the heading in the clearance but the distraction cause the CLNC controller to kind of stumble through the clearance and then tell me I had a correct read back. All this can happen in real life so I should have questioned either the clearance or TWR controller about an initial heading.

So, I'll try it again as soon as I get a chance without "improving" on the flight plan. URL to the PE ATC recording below.
Thanks again,
Bruce Buckley (6887)

http://assets.pilotedge.net/recordings/ ... _18011.mp3

Hi Bruce, I'm sorry that happened. I saw the notes on the distracting kid, that account was closed as soon as we learned about the issue. I'll discuss this further with Peter when I meet with him tomorrow.

That's a tough result on the fail because of the heading, especially if you heard 'readback correct'. The only thing you could've done differently, as you suspect was seek clarification on the takeoff clearance since no heading was assigned at that time. As you know, it's virtually unheard of to depart a Class C airport (where IFR traffic is separated from IFR and VFR traffic) without some kind of course guidance (either a vector or a SID) prior to wheels up. That should've been an indication that something was up. That said, the controller should've caught the fact that you didn't read back a heading in the IFR clearance.

Unfortunately foreflight has led you astray, the CSTN30 TEC route is defined as "V23 OCN" per the SW A/FD TEC route section. Foreflight's handling of TEC routes is generally incorrect I'm told (I don't use foreflight so I can't really speak to that part of it).

Also, I was expecting a clearance with radar vectors to V23 whether I filed KRAUZ V23 OCN or just V23 OCN, so it shouldn't matter

Normally you would be correct, however within the Socal region IFR routes are all defined using the Tower Enroute Control (TEC) system. These routes are mandatory and cannot be edited in any way, this is true in the real world and hence we emulate it here.

I'll look a bit more into the clearance heading confusion. Let me talk to the controller who was working with you and I'll follow up. While you are correct that a follow up should have been done if the controller omitted the heading on the second clearance it causes enough of a gray area that I'd like to look into it a little more.

The issue is that foreflight can't handle routes starting with airways. It needs a waypoint to transition onto the airway.

This is a case of filing one thing, but entering something else into foreflight to make it work. That said, you absolutely COULD file KRAUZ V23 OCN as the route in an IFR flight plan, however, the clearance from ATC won't reference KRAUZ. In other words, it would be harmless to file KRAUZ, but it's not going to be part of the clearance you receive.

Also be aware that Foreflight (and numerous other flight planning applications) have some significant errors in their TEC route search logic.

1. They fail to associate the route with an aircraft category
2. The don't indicate the required conditions (i.e. direction of operations at KLAX, KSAN, KSNA and KTOA)
3. They are using faulty search logic (enter a flight from KAVX to KLAX, Foreflight will offer CSTN43 and CSTN46 however there is no defined TEC route from KAVX to KLAX)

I have reviewed this issue with Foreflight numerous times. I've been told that they will address this but it has now been over 2 years with no fix.

This is still the best page for routes imo

http://www.fly.faa.gov/rmt/nfdc_preferr ... tabase.jsp

Ryan B wrote:This is still the best page for routes imo

http://www.fly.faa.gov/rmt/nfdc_preferr ... tabase.jsp

Need to be careful with that one as well. They are using a text search against the route database which causes the same error for AVX-LAX. The problem is that they do a text search on the "Area" field and it finds a match on "LAXE". This does NOT mean the route is valid into LAX, it means the route is valid when LAX is operating to the EAST. This presents CSTN46 and CSTN43 to the user but they are not valid.

The A/FD is the only source I trust.