Cleared Direct Destination?

[ibaflyer]

The other day, there I was, on an IFR flight plan to OSU (Don Scott Field) for the Ohio State Game. (Another subject all together) Level, 6000' about 12NM, east of the APE VOR heading to OSU. The controller calls me up and says Lance XXXXX proceed direct OSU.

I do not have RNAV but I do have a non-IFR GPS. So, could I use the GPS and go direct? or continue to the VOR and fly the outbound heading for OSU?

Just so you are aware, at 6000' I was almost on top, in and out of the clouds. Bases were around 4500' so I did need to stay IFR to get down.

 

[OtterFO]

When I was flying with a non certified gps, and a controller cleared me direct, I'd say something like "How about a heading of xxx for vectors" the controller would almost always say something like "yeah, that looks good"

The way I chose to interprate the clearence was that I was on radar vectors.

 

[PeteCO]

Yep

Yeah, Deakin did a column on Avweb some time ago about legally flying IFR on a non-certified GPS.

Very cool - www.avweb.com

 

[KingAirer]

"In short, that handheld GPS that the FAA seems to hate so much is a very valuable tool in the cockpit, even when IFR, and should be fully used for situational awareness, and to some degree, for navigation. As with all devices, it should be cross-checked by other means. "

This is the closing line in that article. In my opinion you cannot file and use full GPS capabilities with a handheld. If you look at the last line, with only a handheld GPS, and going IFR to a destination hundreds of miles away you have no way to back it up and isnt a good idea. Otters idea is the best one.

 

[avbug]

I've flown coast to coast on a handheld GPS a number of times. Also with just a sectional, or with basic victor navigation, and even just dead reckoning. You can go direct with any of those means.

Unde IFR, you must be able to reliably fix your position. You may not have an IFR approved GPS unit, but that doesn't mean you don't have other ways to fix your position. If you can navigate by waypoints using bearing and distance from surface navaids, you can fix your position. If you can make the flight with radar guidance to fix your position, you are covered.

You cannot fly IFR using a non-approved GPS as the sole means or primary means of navigation. However, so long as you can reliably fix your position, then you may make the flight.

A more common method is to simply make the trip as a radar vector. However, you can get your heading and course information from a handheld GPS for personal planning purposes. You can then plot a series of fixes on the chart that correspond to the course (mentally, or actually jot them down) and fly point to point in this manner.

The bottom line is that you can accept the clearance so long as you can navigate there with approved means. As you will have been using most of those approved means since you were a student pilot, then there should be little issue about taking the clearance. If you aren't approved-GPS equipped, you can't accept the clearance as a GPS clearance...but then it wasn't given as one, was it?

 

[KingAirer]

How are you going to navigate off airway in a straight line with approved means IFR, without RNAV or GPS(approved)?

 

[avbug]

You're joking, right???

How do you suppose we did it BEFORE we had rnav/gps???

 

[KingAirer]

If you are in the clouds IFR, i dont see how looking at a sectional is going to work.

 

[avbug]

Actually, it would. However, we don't use sectional's for IFR, do we. Except for an excellent backup to understanding the terrain beneath you in the event of an emergnecy, generally a sectional chart isn't part of IFR navigation.

There are many other ways to reliably fix a position than using a GPS, or reading a sectional. Are you familiar with any of them?

 

[tarp]

You're joking, right???

How do you suppose we did it BEFORE we had rnav/gps???

Av,

We don't agree on much, but I am LMAO on that one.

Reminds me of a trip I did as a favor for an IFR student. Long, long X-C to mid Florida. I must have been day-dreaming because faster than I could say "No" my student accepted direct to an intersection about 140 miles away.

I laughed, teased and then laid my plotter down on the chart came up with something like a 208 heading, put my finger up in a mock where's the wind blowing from, clicked in about 12 degrees of wind correction and arrived about a quarter mile off the intersection. ATC never said boo and the student learned a lot about our old friend "Dead" and when to accept short cuts.

No one seems to know how we did that triangulate thing in our heads - you know before RNAV. Guess it was all magic, smoke and mirrors!! Still smiling - fly safe.