Quote:
Originally Posted by ChinookDriver  On that subject, I've been given direct routings (without me asking) to navaids a 100 miles away, or to random intersections when I wasn't on an airway. This is in slant Uniform aircraft. Is ATC just used to slant Golfs or better and overlook my lack of equipment to go direct?
When I tell them unable, slant U, they usually say "oh... okay..." and clear me somewhere I can actually navigate to. But it seems like they they didn't know I didn't have a GPS or something. |
I believe you have hit the nail on the head... at least it was often that way for me. I entered the FAA in the previous century when RNAV was, as Brisco would say, "a coming thing." Also an ever-expanding thing at the time was automated radar systems, which for me, shifted my focus from that bank of strips with ALL the flight data printed and written on them to the brand new radar scope with a GOOD BIT of flight data (but NOT equipment suffixes) right there on it in a nifty thing called a data block.
Meanwhile, in not too long of a time, nearly everybody gained the capability of going direct anywhere. The trap I fell in most often was getting so used to the new breed of airplane that I forgot about the aging ones that were headed out to pasture soon enough that they didn't merit an avionics upgrade.
Immediately after cutting a few miles off the trip by clearing someone direct to a fix and getting the reply, "Thanks but can't do that..." , I'd cut a glance over at the strip bay and sure enough... right there it was in bold type... "/A".