Airway and intersection depiction on charts?

[Dana]

I can't seem to find the answer to this anywhere: Do sectional charts show all the victor airways in the area? For example:



I'm not talking about how they fade out the thick blue line for clarity, as near GON. CREAM is obviously the intersection of V16-374, V451, and V34 (the 34 label is off the snippet). But what is FLIBB intersection? V16-374, clearly, but what about the other arrows? They point at VORs or nearby airports, but they're not actually airways themselves, correct? It seems odd that one points at a tiny uncontrolled field like Elizabeth but there isn't one pointing at GON which is class D with a VOR.

 

[dmspilot]

Intersections don't have to be exclusively defined by intersections of airways. They can be an airway and another VOR radial that is not part of an airway, or even a localizer. In this case, FLIBB is not pointing to Elizabeth airport. On the VFR sectional, the arrows point to the facility that define the intersection (which is the opposite of an IFR chart, but I digress). In thise case, FLIBB is made up of intersections of CCC, MAD, CMK, BDR, and HTO VORs. You can find data defining fixes in text format here. I might guess that GON is at too acute an angle with the airway to define the intersection accurately enough, but I don't know the standard for that offhand.

 

[flyingron]

To answer the original question is sectionals do not show all the airways and show even a smaller percentage of the intersections. Not all places where two victor airways cross result in an named intersection either.
And as DMS points out, not all intersections have anything to do with victor airways.

As you note, the arrows on the sectional point to the station that defines the fix. They may not be an intersection of two airways.

 

[chemgeek]

FYI, FLIBB is the IAF for the RWY 35 and RWY 5 approaches at Chester and Groton, respectively.

 

[Dana]

Gotcha, thanks all. But I last used a victor airway or even a VOR some 35 years ago, strictly low and slow pilotage in mostly NORDO aircraft ever since until cheap handheld GPS receivers became available.

If sectionals don't show all airways, what is left out and how does one know where they are? Or are they high alitude airways of no concern to a VFR pilot using a sectional chart?

My original purpose was to identify areas not on (i.e. >4NM from the centerline of) any airways, where aerobatics are allowed per 91.303(d). There aren't many such places in my part of the world,and they aren't very large.

 

[jordane93]

Gotcha, thanks all. But I last used a victor airway or even a VOR some 35 years ago, strictly low and slow pilotage in mostly NORDO aircraft ever since until cheap handheld GPS receivers became available.

If sectionals don't show all airways, what is left out and how does one know where they are? Or are they high alitude airways of no concern to a VFR pilot using a sectional chart?

My original purpose was to identify areas not on (i.e. >4NM from the centerline of) any airways, where aerobatics are allowed per 91.303(d). There aren't many such places in my part of the world,and they aren't very large.

When I’m VFR I have very few reasons to know or care about intersections and/or airways. Look at a low IFR chart if you want more info.