Conflicting Instruction

EnRoute · April 7th, 2008, 20:20

Hey all. I was practicing some ILS approaches with low minimums on FSX. My flight originated at Seattle and I was just hopping over to Boeing Field. I was heading 160 out of Seattle and received an instruction to turn left to 305. I started my turn, and about 10 seconds later received an instruction to turn right to 295. I know this is a simulation but is this something that I would ever hear in the real world, and if so would I break off my left turn and make the right turn to 295? Thanks a bunch.

ATC RET 2003 · April 7th, 2008, 20:40

If a direction of turn is specified in conjunction with an assigned heading, you should turn in that direction. If no direction of turn is specified, you would be expected to turn in whichever direction was nearer to the new heading.

A turn of greater than 180 degrees is probably not too common but it can happen. If I ever issued one, it was usually for a very specific reason and I usually restated the direction of turn just to be sure.

Not sure if that helps any, but there you have it.