In article ,
Roy Smith wrote:

Ron Garret wrote:
A couple of related questions. You'll want to get your southern
California approach plates out to follow this.

It makes it easier on people if you could provide a URL to the plate(s) you
have in mind.

Well, in this case there were half a dozen plates in play. Is there an
easy way to pull up all the plates for a particular airport on line? I
only know how to get them one at a time.

The second question begins with a background anecdote:

A few weeks ago I flew VNY-CMA. I filed /G, so I assumed (silly me)
that I'd get a GPS approach. The clearance was Canoga 8 departure, VNY,
direct. When ATC told me to fly direct COOGA I realized something was
amiss, as I suddenly had no clue where COOGA was.

So ask the guy. "Unfamiliar with COOGA, say reason for reroute".

I did ask where COOGA was (actually I asked how it was spelled), but
neither I nor the controller picked on the fact that we had a major
disconnect going on. (The controller did express surprise that I wasn't
familiar with COOGA, but didn't make the connection and say, "COOGA is
the IAF for the approach you're supposed to be flying. Are you sure you
know what you're doing?") I didn't ask for the reason for the reroute
because I didn't realize it was a reroute.

(BTW, all this was in VFR conditions. If I had been in the clouds I
would have been much more proactive about asking for help, but since I
always had the option of canceling IFR if things really went south I
wanted to see if I could figure it out on my own.)

2. The Canoga 8 departure doesn't go to VNY. The lost comm procedure
says to intercept the LAX 323 radial, then "as assigned." But if I take
that literally, I'd be flying back to VNY along some more or less random
heading (depending on where I intercepted the LAX-323) but almost
certainly pointing in almost the exact wrong direction. Why isn't the
clearance "Canoga 8, COOGA, direct"? And what should I really do if I
lose comm after departure on this clearance?

It sounds like you should intercept the LAX-323, fly that northwest to
IPIHO, then eastbound direct VNY, then continue with your clearance.

Yes, that's what it sounds like, but that can't be right. Continuing
with the clearance at that point would require making a 180 degree turn
(more or less) with no charted procedure for doing so (probably because
there are mountains on both sides). And why to IPIHO? The lost comm
procedure doesn't mention IPIHO. They just say to intercept LAX323 and
then as assigned. So if you really took that literally you'd be
approaching VNY from some random heading depending on where you
intercepted LAX323. The whole thing doesn't make sense.

This
is a lot of button pushing to do by the book. By the time you got the box
set up to track the LAX-323 outbound, you'd probably be past IPIHO, not to
mention that it might blow away the rest of your carefully programmed
flight plan. What I would have done instead was go into moving map mode,
turn on displaying intersections, and flown it by eye.

I'm not so concerned with the mechanics of flying the approach in this
case as I am just figuring out what the rules say I'm supposed to do.
It really seems to me like this clearance had a bug in it, and it should
have been Canoga 8, COOGA, direct, not Canoga 8, VNY, direct.

rg