Waypoints

Editor in Chief Thomas B. Haines has experienced ATC ops all over the Northern Hemisphere.

Read Al Marsh's " The Unofficial Controller Glossary" on page 117 and you'll learn some of the behind-the-scenes lingo air traffic controllers use to describe some of the things that we pilots do to cause them grief — unintentional grief, but grief nonetheless. We FLIBs aren't the only source of frustration to those behind the radarscopes. I've heard some airline pilots do some pretty boneheaded things too, right up to landing at the wrong airport. It's happened more than once. Try explaining that to the 150 guests in the back. If it's just the spouse and kids along, you can mumble something about needing to stay current on landings, make a quick launch for the correct airport, and hope no one asks any questions.

The U.S. air traffic control system, the finest, most efficient in the world, makes attempts at standardization in order to spin high-speed travel out of chaos. For the most part it works, this despite the sometimes mysterious routings and procedures that leave pilots wondering who makes up this stuff.

Case in point, a recent trip from Frederick, Maryland, to Norfolk, Virginia. No doubt the air defense identification zone that dropped into place over the Baltimore-Washington Class B area this winter when terrorist threats were raised has increased air traffic complexity in this part of the world. But this was a nice VFR winter day. I filed IFR because it's just easier than dealing with the airspace issues right now. The Class B stretches from the Chesapeake Bay practically to the Shenandoah Mountains, so it's not easy to circumnavigate.

When you leave Frederick IFR you are going to the Westminster VOR, 19 nm to the east. Whether you file it or not, that will be your first assigned fix because Frederick airspace is controlled by Baltimore, even though you are out of Baltimore's radar coverage below about 2,000 feet or so over Frederick. Baltimore owns Westminster, and you need to go there so they can get you radar identified before turning you loose on course — which may well be westbound. Meanwhile, no other IFR traffic can take off or land at Frederick Municipal Airport until you are radar identified or, in the case of an approach, you call through the ground station and cancel your IFR flight plan. Never mind that Washington Dulles International Airport, 28 nm south, has radar coverage almost to the ground at Frederick. This is the ATC way and you will follow it.

Local pilots have tried for years to have these procedures changed, but to no avail. With the consolidation of the approach control operations for Baltimore, Andrews Air Force Base, Ronald Reagan Washington National, Dulles, and Richmond, Virginia, into one facility called Potomac Approach, we hope to get some relief.

With Frederick to the north of the Baltimore-Washington Class B and Norfolk to the south, and knowing I'd never get a clearance down through the middle, I chose to file down the east side of the airspace — from Westminster to Baltimore to the GRACO intersection and then direct down the Chesapeake to Norfolk. Knowing that the busy Patuxent Naval Air Station airspace lay in between, I counted on a few vectors or a bit of rerouting. Instead, what I got was Frederick to Westminster with vectors to Baltimore, Victor 93 to Patuxent, which goes over GRACO, V16 to COLIN, V33 to join V286 (which happens at FAGED to STEIN, and then direct. Look at the route on a chart and it's as crooked as you might imagine. You wonder what computer deep in the bowels of the FAA dreamed that one up.

Surely, you say, one wouldn't have to actually fly that entire route — not when your flight plan shows you're GPS equipped. Oh, but you would say wrongly. Shave a corner off here or there, but for the most part that was the route that was to be flown. It was the ATC way — at least the ATC of the Northeast. Airways are our friends.

Contrast that with the ATC of the Upper Midwest. A trip from Frederick to Cadillac, Michigan, a few weeks earlier showed that the standard in one part of the country doesn't necessarily carry over to another. ATC of the Northeast wants you on an airway and wants absolute control of every turn you make — and this is not a new thing related only to terrorist threats and the Iraqi war. In the Upper Midwest, pilots are more on their own.

About 30 miles from Cadillac, Minneapolis Center hadn't told me what approach to expect at Cadillac, which is about halfway up the mitten of Michigan. We were on top of an overcast with spectacularly clear skies above. The sun was just setting to our left, casting a wonderful orange glow across the tops of the clouds. To our right, the moon was rising, lighting the eastern horizon. Enjoying the sights only possible from a GA airplane, we were in no hurry to descend into the cold clouds. Visibility was good underneath, according to the AWOS.

I finally asked center what approach I could expect at Cadillac. "Cleared for the approach," came the reply.

My left eyebrow arched. There are five approaches at Cadillac. "Umm, cleared for which approach?" I quizzed.

"Whichever one you want," he retorted, as if I should know that.

"OK. I'll take the GPS Runway 25."

"That's fine. Cleared for the approach."

With that, I loaded the approach into the Garmin GNS 530 and had it point me toward the initial approach fix of LADIN. En route to LADIN, I heard another Bonanza reporting in from the southwest, also headed to Cadillac. A Midwesterner, as I found out later, he knew to state which approach he intended to fly — the NDB to Runway 7 with the intent to circle to 25. The controller issued him holding instructions with 15-mile legs while I flew the approach. His expect-further-clearance time was for 25 minutes later. That got even my attention. I saw the airport shortly after descending below the clouds and canceled IFR, keeping him from even having to enter the hold.

In the end, both of my flights ended without incident — one perplexing in its complexity, the other in its simplicity. The circuitous routing to Norfolk didn't add more than a couple of minutes to the trip time, but you wonder why it's necessary. More perplexing is when you are given a full route clearance across a dozen VORs and intersections all connected by airways, yet are allowed to fly a much simpler, more direct route. If the controllers can grant such direct routes, why can't the computer issue them that way?

Such ATC conundrums aren't limited to IFR flight. I've found the New York Approach controllers to be some of the best in the country. They are as accommodating as they can be and when they can't be, they at least let you know why. Because of the complexity of the New York airspace, I no longer fly into the area VFR, but a few years ago I did. The destination was Teterboro, New Jersey, just on the west side of the Hudson River from Manhattan. It was a spectacularly clear spring morning and I couldn't be bothered with filing IFR. I wanted to do a little sightseeing on the way to the Big Apple.

Once in contact with the New York Approach controller, I proceeded directly for Teterboro. After a few minutes and when I was well over the New York metro area, he issued me instructions for sequencing. "Fly to the ABC tower and then proceed to the airport."

ABC tower? I'm looking at a sea of towers out there — and never mind the traffic everywhere.... Finally I have to fess up. "Approach, can you give me a hint on which is the ABC tower?"

"Never mind. Just proceed to the airport." Apparently I had tipped my hand. I wasn't a local, so he was going to have to handhold me. A "FLIB," a "squirrel." At least he was nice about it.

You, or at least I, can raise the ire of ATC not only as a "dink," but even when burning kerosene. It was my first flight in a Cessna CJ1 business jet and my first landing at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport, second busiest in the nation. ATC vectored me for a downwind to Runway 8L. As we turned downwind, I looked out the window at the runway complex. We were at 5,000 feet msl, some 4,000 feet agl. That's a high downwind, even for a jet — a crowbar arrival. Eventually, we were cleared to become a crowbar and turn base and final. On final, I slowed to 130 kt — well above V _REF but slow enough for me to get a better feel for the airplane and to give myself time to get set up.

"Cessna maintain 150 knots," barked the controller. "Delta 123, American 456, USAir 789 — all of you, slow to 150 knots now. A Citation on final just blew my whole lineup." He had a "goin' home final" all set up and I had turned it into a "Leon Spinks final."

I wanted to call him a "weak stick," but instead I motored down the final approach, landed, and ducked off the runway as fast as I could, feeling like a "FLIB" in "nearjet" clothing.

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