Say again? ( Route clearance)

The other day I made a trip down to MKC in the weather. While I was recieving my clearance the controller stated he had a full route ammendment to my route. I say, " ready to copy", he comes back with a bunch of gibberish Lat/Long cooridinates.. I'm a fairly new instrument pilot and had never been exposed to that type of clearance. I asked hm if he could repeat, and he did... The exact same coordinates. I asked him if he could give me the fixes for those coordinates. He replies "It's your filed route sir". So, I confirmed it two times just to be sure with guy and off I went. Bottom line, I felt like an idiot. Also, what was he trying to accomplish with this clearance he gave me?

How and what did you file?

would like to know why he did this as well.

I once had a student file Radar Vectors as the route. Which resulted in a lat long clearance and some very humours comments from clearance delivery.

AHAHA! That's golden.

To the OP: seriously.... How did u file? I would have told him to re-file with normal fixes.

Haha in the CONUS ive never been issued fixes via LAT and LONG.

I suggest changing the way you file.

I have. Same route (and flight number) that gets flown every single day and then all of the sudden we got this random set of lat/long coords just past Atlanta.

We ended up taking a reroute (our normal and filed routing actually) because the company didn't have a procedure for entering coords into the FMS.

I'm banking on you filed on DUATS.com. A controller I work with is has been working to figure it out for the last 3 plus years. Seems like the route gets spit out in lat longs that have something possibly to do with airspace boundaries and somewhere in the system between you filing and us getting the flight progress strip is just gets changed to the coordinates. We aren't 100% certain why it does. All attempts to pass the info along the FAA "suggestion box" haven't quite fixed it yet. I see it about 8 to 10 times a year and always ask, "you filed DUATS.com didn't you?" The answer is always yes and I always send them direct destination. As to the controller actually issuing you the lat longs, well you can't fix stupid.

Plenty of controllers have no clue how an aviation GPS/FMS/RNAV etc works and some have the attitude of you filed it you fly it. Next time you get that from a controller tell them you filed direct, or what have you, and tell them you have no means to enter in a lat long and that fixes would be required (as you did).

I see it a lot on clearances filed direct. Never issued one though because you have a better chance of flying the Space Shuttle in your career than you do of going direct anywhere further than 15 miles around here.

I was on the jumpseat of a red eye once coming out of SFO to Dulles. They'd just gotten the wheels in the wells when they got cleared direct to MRB. And it stuck too.

Craziest thing ever.

I was exaggerating a bit, I got the SWA flight my sister was on after she graduated bootcamp and headed home to visit my parents direct MHT from about 5 miles east of BWI at around 7 pm on a Thursday night, it was like prying a tooth out of the centers mouth without pain meds but it stuck. The pilot said "verify direct MHT?!?!?!?" And that goes pretty much right through the meat and potatoes of the Northeast during a fairly busy time.

But I can almost guarantee you are less likely to get direct if if you file it than you are if you ask for it once airborne.

I saw a flight plan yesterday that had a ton of fix radial distance fixes in it. In short, it was a bunch of points between the departure point, and a VOR serving an approach at the destination. I just cleared them direct destination so the flight plan was actually readable. There were probably 9-10 of those fixes in the flight plan, going someplace in Florida.

always been my experience...

Seriously! All of my flights from the Southeast are direct Patuxent, then all bets are off until I'm past Boston. It's usually ends up as good lesson in negotiation. They once tried to re-route me West of Philly from there. Never got a bunch of coordinates tho.

I pretty much always file direct. Its what I want, why the hell should I file for anything else? On the east coast I'm going to get a reroute with each controller along the way anyway, so I typically don't plan on any route other than a general line from point a to point b and hope that the reroutes don't take me too far out of the way.

I always seemed to manage direct. :bandit:

It's good to (know) the King.

I filed via DUATS.com...
Perhaps I should start calling it into the annoying FSS. Is there no other way around it?

You can file electronically via fltplan.com

But do we have confirmation that the same deal won't happen as DUATS?