Q about lost comms on weird clearance

Seems to me the easiest solution in this case is to carry a handheld and
some spare batteries.


(Snowbird) wrote in
om:

Judah wrote in message
. ..
I'm no expert (still in training, actually) but it seems to me he
wasn't cleared to a hold. He was cleared to a fix.

He was also told to expect to continue as filed afterward. It would
seem that he therefore doesn't require an EFC time... Once he reaches
the fix, he should be able to continue as filed.

I think you've got it. "no delay expected" is the same as "expect
further clearance before you get there" ie, your EFC time is
effectively your flight time to the fix.

The catch in this case, if I remember my WNY geography correctly,
is that Paul filed expecting to head WNW from Batavia to Buffalo.
The clearance he got had him heading SE. His filed route had
no provision for getting him from his new clearance limit, to
his filed route. But I think Paul's interpretation "fly from
GEE to BUF" is perfectly reasonable. The airway *is* direct.
It would be nice to have this confirmed, but I wouldn't bet
a penny that some ATCS who tried a similar procedure said
something like "expect further clearance via direct BUF then
as filed", only to have the pilot mishear, take off, and fly direct
BUF screwing up a bunch of separation in the process. But
Paul could make that query in future if he wants to be certain.

I think Roy Smith is exactly correct about what Paul got and
why he got it -- and it's actually a valuable negotiating technique
to ASK for a clearance limit like that (doesn't have to be a
VOR, can be an intersection or a VOR deg-dist) if you're below
radar coverage and having trouble getting your IFR clearance.

Cheers,
Sydney

Judah wrote in message . ..
Seems to me the easiest solution in this case is to carry a handheld and
some spare batteries.

Well, maybe. First see a recent post by Roy Smith wrt how useful
he and a friend found a handheld to be when they experienced a
radio failure in busy NYC airspace (an area with generally very
good radio reception, though busy frequencies). At a minimum
for a handheld to be useful, you need a headset adaptor and a
cable so that the duckie antenna can be situated on a window,
preferably a connection to an external antenna.

Even with a headset adaptor and an external antenna connection
and cable, personally if I were flying single-pilot IFR in
rough IMC, digging out the handheld and setting it up would
be pretty low on my list of priorities.

But perhaps that's just me, and other pilots are more capable
of aviating and navigating while digging stuff out and setting
it up.

Cheers,
Sydney