Hey, MzeroA nation.
Jason back with you.
Back with one of my early flight mentors, Joel,
very good friend, Controller Bob, down here.
Continuing, last week we spoke about IFR clearances.
I had an idea as we were talking.
Bob, I'm going to blame you on this one, okay?
- Because it's mostly you. - I blame him all the time.
- He blame me all the time, right. - It's his type of people.
"What are you doing up there?"
I plan and plan and we teach this on our online ground school,
this beautiful IFR cross country.
I look at the preferred route and I've got the right altitudes.
I spilled all the fixes right.
Everything is perfect.
And then, I write down my craft and I get my clearance or, even better,
I make it to the hold short line and tower goes, "Wait a second.
So and so approach has an amendment to your clearance."
Contact ground.
Yeah, exactly.
Talk about it from your perspective.
You do some really long IFR cross countries, Joel.
You have to have a ton of reroutes.
Yeah, I've had--the most reroutes I've had was six.
Six.
And that was from Jacksonville to Teterboro.
So, you go into Norfolk, they'll give you a reroute
from whatever their airspace is going on.
And then, you get into Potomac approach and they'll give you a reroute,
depending on what airspace.
And these fixes, you're trying to figure out
how to spell them and everything else.
Right, yeah.
Back then, it was J routes; but now, it's all the fixes.
Or they send you to a weird DuPont V award [unin].
Well, I didn't know where DuPont was.
Well, it's next to Philadelphia.
And then, when you get to Philadelphia, they have their own way of doing things.
And what was confusing to me is I'm cruising on at 18,000 feet.
And all of a sudden, they want me at six.
Well, I'm 250 miles from where I need to be.
And it's 17,000 feet.
I burned 60 gallons of fuel.
Well, at 6,000 feet,
I'll burn hundred gallons of fuel per hour.
So, you have to think about that.
But, they take you into over Philadelphia at 6,000 feet
and on up to Teterboro because that's what New York wants,
because the airplanes are coming out or going to higher routes.
So, they'll duck the turbo props in underneath.
And since then, I take a co-pilot with me
because it's hard to fly the airplane, do a reroute.
And that's back when I was using charts.
- That's before iPads. - Yeah, iPads, something else.
So, I'm like-- "Can you spell that intersection for me?"
Figuring out.
Bob, why do you want to reroute?
Is it to check our spelling? Is it what do you do as a controller?
Because with no pronunciation guide for some waypoints.
- Exactly. - No.
The reality is that each facility has their requirements
of how they need airplanes fed to them
and how they want them flowing through the airspace.
So, as you get further to the North,
somebody down at one side of the country
would not know the requirements of, in your case,
Norfolk or Potomac or Charlotte approach.
Right. Everybody set their own.
We wouldn't know. I certainly don't know.
So, I'm perfectly fine. I went directly to Teterboro.
But, as you get further out the line,
somebody is going to have a problem with that.
And that's where you start getting a reroute.
So, Charlotte may say to the person feeding them,
"I need them this direction."
And so, the no issue, the instruction before you get to Charlotte.
Charlotte will say, "I don't care what happens further up the line,"
but somebody up there does.
And so, that's where you end up getting a reroute.
So, the question is why wouldn't there be a master reroute
so that you would have some better way of planning,
and so you don't spend 20 minutes doing this beautiful route,
and then see it basically turn into garbage?
And the answer is, I don't know the answer to that question.
It's just unfortunately the way the system operates.
I wish I had the masterplan.
But, it's just unfortunate, the way that works.
Because a lot of agency is trying to work together--
A lot of facilities with their own unique requirements
that require certain things.
And in response to your question about 250 miles away
and I need you down at 6,000 feet.
If you look at the big picture, it's not about your fuel burn.
We're interested in flowing airplanes the most efficiently possible.
And so, if they're more of this airplane then an airplane,
then they would necessarily this flow is more important at this altitude
and we need to get you tucked underneath it
because the alternative would not be workable.
So, that's the whole purpose for that.
Unfortunately, fuel burn could be a problem in that regard.
And when you're going to the legs of four hours,
an extra 40 or 50 gallons, it leaves me into my reserve.
And, unfortunately, you may not know that's going to occur
and that's why there are reserves on board
and you have to make other alternative plans.
But, it's interesting because there is a bigger picture in play
and, unfortunately, as I'm flying, and you've taught me many times before,
we're not initially aware of the big picture.
South Florida is a perfect example.
Flying to South Florida,
I don't know anything about South Florida.
And he and I are flying down there and like, "What is going on?"
Because I had the same experience.
Palm Beach puts his 4,000 feet out over the swamp.
Oh, always.
- At night. - Yeah, right.
And you're 50 miles from where you need to be.
So, fortunately, I had the luxury of calling up
one of my buddies and go, "What happened?"
And they explained us the big picture, which we're not luxury to.
And we go, "It makes perfect sense."
Right, it makes sense once you see it.
Yeah. Well, that's cool.
See it from that perspective. So, super cool.
There is method to the madness.
Absolutely. Always, always.
Listen, any questions you have for Joel or Bob,
I know that they'll be watching at the comment section
on YouTube, on Facebook, on MzeroA.com.
Ask them any questions you all have down there.
Listen, enjoy the rest of your day and, most importantly,
remember that a good pilot is always learning.
Have a good day, guys. We'll see you.
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