Stan Prevost wrote:
"Sam Spade" wrote in message
...

Roy Smith wrote:


It ATC is allowed to send you direct to an IF, then the distinction
between IF and IAF has, for all practical matters, been eliminated. If
that's the case, then the databases and/or software needs to be updated
to have the IFs show up in the menu.

It will take quite a few years for the FAA to identify all the IFs.
Direct-to-the IF is not an "if" for RNAV IAPs. ;-)

It's been in the AIM and 7110.65 for about a year now.


What's to identify? If it is not an IAF, and not the FAF, and is on an
intermediate segment, it is an IF. Why does it need to be "identified"?

Because sometimes there is a stepdown fix, or two, in the initial
segment, and sometimes there is a stepdown fix, or two, in the
intermediate segment. In that event you do not know which fix is the
intermediate fix (well, we're really speaking of waypoints since this is
an RNAV-only procedure).

If there is only one fix between the IAF and the FAF that, indeed, is
the IF. You are free to determine that on a ad hoc basis as are
controllers.

Jeppesen and NACO, are not. They will not designate the IF until it
appears on the official source. The database vendors, if they chose to
designate IFs in the database, would also not do it on an ad hoc basis.

That's the way the procedures and charting systems work.