ATC Shortcut: Going Direct

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📍 Route: EGLL approach — direct routing⏱ ~4 minutes📊 5 steps🎓 Enroute Operations

"Direct OCK" — five seconds of radio and a chunk of your flight plan gone. Stage it, recover from a mis-hear, and execute.

What this scenario covers

The DIR key opens the direct-to page, listing the waypoints in the flight plan. Selecting one builds a leg from present position straight to that waypoint and deletes everything in between; the aircraft turns as soon as it is inserted.

The scenario deliberately includes a mis-hear and its recovery, because the realistic failure is not being unable to go direct — it is having gone direct to the wrong fix and needing to undo it before the aircraft flies somewhere expensive.

How it applies in flight ops

Directs are the most common in-flight clearance change there is, and they are usually given at exactly the moment the crew is busy with something else. Because they take effect immediately, they are also the change most likely to be actioned before it is fully checked.

The professional habit is read back, then look at what is about to be deleted, then insert. Everything between here and the new fix is going away, including any constraint that was sitting on one of those waypoints.

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Step-by-step: ATC Shortcut: Going Direct

  1. You're on the BIG1G STAR descending into Heathrow. ATC: "Speedbird 123, route direct OCK." Press the DIR key to open the DIR TO page.

    DIR TO is the fastest way to comply with a "route direct" clearance. The page accepts a waypoint either by typing it into the scratchpad and pressing 1L, or by picking from the listed flight-plan legs on the left. Either way, the waypoint goes onto the cyan staging line at the top.

  2. Type OCK into the scratchpad and press 1L to stage the waypoint.

    OCK is Ockham VOR (115.30 MHz), a high-traffic London TMA fix often used for direct routings into Heathrow. Staging puts it on the cyan top line — nothing has been sent to the autopilot yet. This is your last chance to check it before commitment.

  3. Re-listen to the tape — ATC actually said "direct BIG", not OCK. Press ERASE (6L) to discard OCK before executing.

    This is the standard recovery if you mis-key or mis-hear a clearance. ERASE only affects the staged waypoint on the cyan line — your live flight plan is untouched. Always read back the clearance to ATC before pressing DIRECT* — once executed, you're committed.

  4. Now stage the correct waypoint. Type BIG and press 1L.

    BIG (Biggin) is south-east of London and feeds several STARs into RWYs 27L/27R. Once it's staged on the cyan line, the right side shows DIRECT* in amber — that's the execute prompt.

  5. Read back the clearance to ATC, confirm with the PM, then press DIRECT* (6R) to execute.

    Pressing DIRECT* commits the change: the FMS draws a magenta line from your present position direct to BIG, drops any intervening waypoints, and the autopilot turns toward it on LNAV. Note: this trainer simulates the keystrokes accurately but doesn't redraw the F-PLN afterwards — on the real aircraft, you'd see the new track on the ND and the F-PLN page would re-sequence.

What to take away

  • DIR builds a leg from present position and deletes the waypoints in between.
  • It takes effect immediately — the aeroplane turns when you insert it.
  • Deleted waypoints take their constraints with them.
  • Read back, check what disappears, then insert. In that order.

The rest of Enroute Operations

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