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From: jlg@lanl.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: Flight charts
Message-ID: <17789@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 11-Dec-84 12:34:30 EST
Article-I.D.: lanl.17789
Posted: Tue Dec 11 12:34:30 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Dec-84 02:19:16 EST
References: <128@anwar.UUCP> <208@terak.UUCP> <6436@brl-tgr.ARPA> <215@terak.UUCP>
Sender: newsreader@lanl.ARPA
Distribution: net.general
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 19

> You must not live in the West.  One doesn't fly a straight line
> between two points out here.  If you try, you will a) pile into a
> mountain, b) bust an Airport Traffic Area, c) bust a TCA, or
> d) bust a restricted area.  And that's just during the climb-out!
> 
> AOPA keeps sending me literature on Flight Charts.  One of these
> days they'll figure out that I've no use for charts where the
> "airways" are computer-calculated as straight lines between
> VOR's, and not based on the true airway alignment.  In addition,
> VOR's out here tend to be affected by the mountainous terrain,
> so the radial as computed by Flight Charts is often as much as
> 3 degrees off the airway as flight-tested by the FAA.

It's worse than that!  AOPA has sent me advertisements for charts on which
the altitude of the terrain is color coded.  That's fine, except that 
everything above 5000 ft is the same color.  It must be a misprint. I have
to go about 100 miles to get below 5000 ft.  They must really mean 5000 meters
or maybe 15000 feet - nope: they really color code everything above 5000 ft
the same.