https://youtu.be/3dQQsSHcdGY
Following a short, pleasant PilotsNPaws transport to Fullerton, we file, pick up, and fly a TEC Route back to Santa Barbara over a very quiet LAX. A TEC Route is a regionally specific, shorthand IFR clearance for a pre-packaged routing, and sometimes simplifies things a little. Have you flown a SoCal TEC Route? How ‘bout a TEC Route in the Northeastern USA? Do you see much benefit?
Thanks for your insight and enjoy the video!
Wayne, the GeezerGeek Pilot
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Literally hundreds of times.
Here’s a relic: It’s a TEC Route “calculator” that was issued by the FAA Western Region (this was before FSDO’s) in 1977. You’d look for your departure airport on the left and then you’d slide the white card down until the little arrow pointed to your destination airport, and then you’d see the appropriate TEC route name, route, and altitude in the window at the bottom of the card.
You can see that these were the “Charlie” routes. Now we’re up to “Papa!”
BTW, you do not need to pre-file an IFR flight plan if you are going to fly between airports served by a SoCal TEC route. You can just call up Clearance Delivery or Ground and tell them you want the SBA Papa 6 to Santa Ana, for example. No problemo.
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Gordon, I love the calculator! (although coming out of undergrad engineering in 1971 I swore to never use a “sliderule” again :-). And now I know why the “papa” today. Very cool info.
I’m aware of the ability to call for clearance without filing… and the advantage for example on training flights where your might fly several TEC Routes on a given training outing. In my case, it’s just a click on ForeFlight to file so I always do it that way.
Thx for sharing.
Wayne
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Cool slide rule- I get the name of the TEC route online and FF accepts the name of the TEC route and inserts all the waypoints into your FP. 
. Anyone know if FF has a List of the names?
I don’t know if they list of TEC names feature. But, they do have TEC labeled routes in their Route Advisor.
Yes, but that’s not the actual name of the route. Eg. BURP19 is the name of a route, put that into a FF flight plan and you can upload the route with Flightstream 210 to the panel.
I use this site: TEC ROUTES
E.g KVNY TO KSBA is the BURP39. Which is
FIM.V186.DEANO.V27.KWANG… instead of typing all that into FF, just type BURP39 and it will do it for you.
Yes, ForeFlight gives the TEC route names (e.g. BURP39) and then via the Navlog can be expanded into the specific waypoints.
Wayne
Yes, but are they all listed somewhere or a digital version of Gordon’s slide rule?
They are all listed in the A/FD Supplementals that are found in the ForeFlight “Documents” page.
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AKAIK, SOCAL has the only TEC routes.
Pierre
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There are TEC routes in the northeast although they don’t work the same way as they do in SOCAL. They are not named and therefore you can’t file for a route by name.
But they are published between city pairs and when using them you are going from approach airspace to approach airspace, never into center airspace.
For example, here are two TEC routes from ABE (Allentown, PA( to HPN (White Plains, NY). One is for props under 210KIAS and the other for faster props:
TEC - Tower Enroute Control
1-2 of 2 Preferred Route(s)
Seq Type Code Origin Route Destination Hours Details
1 TEC KABE FJC V162 HUO IGN V157 HAARP KHPN
Altitude: 5000
Aircraft: PROPS LESS THAN 210 KTS IAS
2 TEC KABE STW SAX V39 BREZY KHPN
Altitude: 5000
Aircraft: JETS AND PROPS GREATER THAN 210 KTS
From a practical standpoint because there is no way to file this other than putting in the entire route it really doesn’t matter to the pilot that it is a TEC route. It’s filed and given as any other route.
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