zatatime wrote:

What I've been taught to be correct is to maintain runway heading
until at an altitude that maneuvering won't be a problem (just like
any other take off) and then turn and fly direct to the VOR. After
station passage continue on your normal route.

That was the possibility that I'd considered and rejected. I'd be very
interested to know on what you're basing that this is correct, as it's not
what I ultimately chose.

As far as I know, there's no requirement that a clearance start with "the
closest fix to the airport". When I depart CDW to the west, for example,
the clearance starts with LANNA. If using a closer fix were necessary,
we'd use the closer fix of SBJ...esp. given that LANNA is defined by a
radial from SBJ, and there's no other way a /U can reasonably locate LANNA
w/o passing by SBJ.

More, there's nothing wrong with intercepting an airway at some point not a
defined waypoint. I've been told in clearances to fly some heading or
radial to intercept an airway plenty of times. So intercepting the airway
between the Lancaster VOR and ETX is no great feat.

Finally, turning and flying back toward the VOR on the field puts me into
potential conflict with the VFR pattern. I don't know that there were any
of those on the day of my visit, but I don't know that there weren't.

So I decided to not do what you think is correct. So I might have been
wrong. As I wrote, I'd be very interested in something which shows this to
be the case (or not to be the case, of course {8^).

- Andrew