ATC Shortcut: Going Direct
Premiumintermediate"Direct OCK" - five seconds of radio and a chunk of your flight plan gone. On this FMS the keypress is the commitment: there is nothing to confirm and nothing to undo.
What this scenario covers
The DIR key opens the direct-to page. Line 1L is the DIR TO field and lines 3 to 6 list the active flight plan; either route builds a leg from present position straight to that waypoint and deletes everything in between. The DIR TO also engages NAV if the autopilot or flight director was in heading or track mode, so with the autopilot on the aircraft turns immediately. After a typed entry the page stays on screen with the direct already flying, and RADIAL IN and RADIAL OUT appear beside it: they turn the direct into an intercept of a radial to or from that waypoint, and confirming one returns you to the flight plan. A line key on the plan list takes you straight back to the flight plan instead.
What the page does not have is the part worth learning. There is no temporary plan, no confirm prompt and no ERASE - unlike a lateral revision, nothing is staged for you to look at before it takes effect. The scenario is built around the consequence: a mis-heard clearance is not undone, it is overwritten by a second direct, and with the autopilot on the aeroplane has already turned in between.
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.
That is why the readback comes first here. On a page that stages a change you can check it on the screen before committing; on this one the only place to catch a wrong fix is before your finger lands. Everything between here and the new fix is going away, including any constraint that was sitting on one of those waypoints.
Fly this one with Premium
The MCDU checks every entry as you make it, and tells you when an entry was accepted but wrong.
Step-by-step: ATC Shortcut: Going Direct
- You're 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, and it has two basic gestures: type a waypoint into 1L, or press the line key next to one already in your plan on lines 3 to 6. One honest note about this trainer: no route is loaded here, so those plan lines start blank. You will see them fill as your own directs put fixes there. Now note what is NOT on the page: no INSERT prompt, no ERASE, no yellow temporary plan. Unlike LAT REV or HOLD, this page builds nothing you get to review. That shapes how you fly it.
- Type OCK into the scratchpad and press 1L.
OCK is Ockham VOR (115.30 MHz), a high-traffic London TMA fix often used for direct routings into Heathrow. Notice what just happened: the unit did not ask you to confirm. The direct leg is already active in the FMS. What the aircraft does with it depends on the autopilot and flight director: a DIR TO engages NAV if they were in heading or track mode, so with the autopilot on the aircraft is already turning, and hand-flying the flight director shows you the turn. With both off, nothing turns until you fly it. The DIR TO page stays on screen with OCK at 1L, and RADIAL IN and RADIAL OUT have appeared on the right. Those turn the direct into an intercept of a radial; you are not using them here, and you do not need to, because the plain direct is already done.
- Press F-PLN to see what the direct did to your flight plan.
The plan is now strung from OCK. Because OCK was not in the plan before, a discontinuity follows it: the FMS has no idea how you mean to get from OCK back onto the rest of the route. (There is no ND in this trainer, so you see the new plan but not the turn.)
- Now the problem: ATC actually said "direct BIG". There is no ERASE on this page to undo it. Press DIR again.
This is the lesson the page teaches. On the Honeywell FMS the DIR TO executes on the keypress, so there is no staged waypoint to discard and no way to back out. That is exactly why the readback happens BEFORE you touch 1L, not after. A wrong direct is not undone, it is overwritten, and in the seconds between the two the aircraft has already turned the wrong way.
- Type BIG and press 1L to go direct to the correct fix.
BIG (Biggin) is south-east of London and feeds several STARs into RWYs 27L/27R. The direct is active again and the page stays up. Look at the plan list on lines 3 to 6: BIG first, then OCK still sitting further down, because your first direct put it there. Correcting a direct-to leaves evidence in the flight plan; it does not restore what was there before.
- Finally, ATC re-clears you direct OCK after all. OCK is already on the plan list below you. Press its line key. No typing.
This is the page's second gesture, and the one crews actually use most: for a fix already ahead of you, the line key is a single press with nothing to mistype. The FCOM puts it plainly: pressing any of the line 3 to 6 keys activates DIRECT TO to the waypoint next to that key. Same immediacy, same absence of an undo, but far less to get wrong under a radio call. This time the unit went straight to F-PLN to show you the result.
What to take away
- DIR builds a leg from present position and deletes the waypoints in between.
- It takes effect on the keypress - there is no confirm step and no ERASE.
- Deleted waypoints take their constraints with them.
- Read back and check the fix BEFORE you press. Afterwards there is nothing to undo - only another direct.
- For a fix already ahead of you, the line key beside it on lines 3 to 6 is one press with nothing to mistype.
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Background reading
- GuideThe A320 MCDU Explained: Every Page, Simply
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- GuideATC Phraseology for Flight Simmers: What to Say and When to Say It
Word-for-word ATC radio scripts for every phase of flight, clearance to landing - for VATSIM, MSFS default ATC and AI addons. Read them off the screen.
- GuideYour First VATSIM Flight: From Setup to Landing Without Panic
Your first VATSIM flight, step by step: client setup, connecting, essential radio phraseology, what ATC expects, and how to recover from mistakes.