IFR Low Void over OH/PA/NY
Posted by HexaJet@reddit | flying | View on Reddit | 22 comments
Been looking around IFR sectionals recently and noticed this complete airway void over much of New York/PA, with no airways being shown and a striking lack of detail compared to the densely filled in East Coast. Is there a reason for this? And, how would aircraft in this area receive MON coverage in the event of a GPS failure? My though process is that areas like this usually would be due to terrain or mountains, but even areas such as the Rockies don't exhibit similar voids. Thoughts?
banditoitaliano@reddit
New VH service volume gets you 70 NM above 5000 AGL, where legacy would just be 40 NM at those altitudes.
So better not be flying too low if you want to handle GPS failure!
AIRdomination@reddit
Those are standard service volumes, not operational service volumes.
banditoitaliano@reddit
Yes, if you look at Philipsburg VOR there are a bunch of unusable radials but mostly the west where the big airway gap is doesn’t have any (200-205 and 320-325 being the exceptions)
I didn’t check others in the area
YaKkO221@reddit
I hope to god you’re looking at the restrictions on those VL and VH facilities before assuming they work out at 70….
banditoitaliano@reddit
Oh, yes, I’m aware. Most of those VOR have a bunch of radial that are unusable past 40.
I didn’t come up with the MON system, lol, don’t blame me!
AIRdomination@reddit
There are plenty of VORs in the area to have more airways, and like others have said, there could have been RNAV airways as well if they wanted to. There is simply no need for a route structure like that in that area.
Airways are designed to funnel routing for ATC if necessary. If it’s not necessary, you won’t see any. There’s no higher meaning here.
OrganicBenzene@reddit
My understanding is ZOB was the pilot for NAVAID decommissioning for MON. The rest will probably look like this too soon.
HLSparta@reddit
Why not still have T airways though?
Friendly-Gur-6736@reddit
Pilots don't file them. Practically my entire career as a controller almost everyone has had some form of RNAV so most low altitude airways go unused save for turboprops/turbojets that file them as very specific routing in/out of certain areas.
Usually if I see a bunch of airways in the route of light GA, odds are it is probably an IR student, or someone who just got their instrument ticket. Most everyone else will file the odd VOR and some 5 letter fixes if they know they'll have to dodge some airspace somewhere, but usually bug smashers almost always file direct everywhere.
AIRdomination@reddit
Airways have nothing to do with whether or not pilots file them. They can be assigned, and for much of the northeast, they do. They exist if ATC routing requires it, and makes for simpler clearances.
HLSparta@reddit
I haven't flown in a while, but when I was flying the only reason I always filed direct was because there are quite literally no airways going north or south by my airport without me going 80 miles out of the way. I would gladly use them if they were accessible since direct to everywhere is boring.
mountainbrew46@reddit
I don’t have a good answer to your question but this area of the country is why I’m an advocate for a better published minimum altitude for random IFR flight. Filing and flying random point-to-point is no big deal but the terrain and obstacle clearance is a mystery up there. You can use your brain and know if you cruise at 5000 feet then there’s nothing to hit, but it shouldn’t be that way. There’s gotta be a more official way to decide what an actual safe altitude is other than me Googling “what’s the tallest mountain in New York”
mason_mormon@reddit
What's wrong with OROCA?
mountainbrew46@reddit
In addition to what others said, page 2-27 of the Instrument Procedures Handbook says the following:
randombrain@reddit
Two things. First what Jeff said, the OROCA covers one square degree which at this latitude is around 2700 square nautical miles. That is massive. The number that's actually relevant to your flight is ATC's MVA/MIA, which has either a 3NM or 5NM buffer around obstacles; for a point-obstruction like a radio mast that means the area of higher MVA can be as small as 28 square miles, or barely 1% of the OROCA. And if your flight doesn't take you through that 1% of the airspace then you don't have to be that high.
The other problem is that the OROCA, unlike the MVA, has no "look-beyond" area outside of the strict grid boundaries. There could theoretically be a tall obstruction one mile on the other side of the grid line, and you could be in compliance with your grid's OROCA while at the same time being in violation of 91.177.
The OROCA is really exceptionally useless from a controller's point of view.
stratjeff@reddit
It can be stupidly high in certain areas due to terrain that wouldn't otherwise be a factor on your route.
FBoondoggle@reddit
For those who are willing to go slightly outside faa sanctioned data, there are a couple of sources for MVA/MIA charts that can be superposed over a basemap in foreflight and probably other efbs. One is at github.com/dark/faa-mva-kml and the other is at mva.askforplanes.com. I have found these to be incredibly useful for getting pop-up IFR in mountainous areas like northern AZ, the Sierras and the PNW.
badlytested@reddit
As another commenter mentioned, and I’ve heard before, this area was a trial run for VOR MON.
To use the MON in the event of a GPS failure you are required to climb to 5,000 AGL to guarantee coverage. That will put you within the 70NM service volumes of the EWC, JHW, and DJB VORs in this area.
Fulcrum58@reddit
From what I understand it’s another evolution of MON as VORs get decommissioned, and shifting towards using RNAV GPS to go direct to fixed and destinations
cazzipropri@reddit
I routinely fly there. Welcome to VOR MON and the age of GPS.
DankVectorz@reddit
There are lots of spots in the Rockies and other parts on the country that show such voids
rFlyingTower@reddit
This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:
Been looking around IFR sectionals recently and noticed this complete airway void over much of New York/PA, with no airways being shown and a striking lack of detail compared to the densely filled in East Coast. Is there a reason for this? And, how would aircraft in this area receive MON coverage in the event of a GPS failure? My though process is that areas like this usually would be due to terrain or mountains, but even areas such as the Rockies don't exhibit similar voids. Thoughts?
Please downvote this comment until it collapses.
Questions about this comment? Please see this wiki post before contacting the mods.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. If you have any questions, please contact the mods of this subreddit.