For example, can you legally fly a direct gps route from Guadeloupe to Opa Locka, FL? Or would you have to stick to airways?
What are all the current reasons why our General Aviation system still uses airways?
If you are VFR (Visual flight rules,) you can fly any route you choose as long as you dont get into restricted airspace along the coast. You have procedures to get into US airspace, but yes you could go "GPS direct. Flying on the airways might be assigned to pilots filing and flying IFR (INSTRUMENT flight rules) where thier clearance will assign them route to fly. some times you CAN get GPS direct if you request it.
I dont hink you could land at OpaLocka though, you are required to first land at a designated port of entry for a customs "inspection" when coming in from out side of US airspace.
edit: I stand corrected and educated, I learned something today!Thanks for the info.
Short answer is, usually not.
Miami's radar coverage extends to about Hispaniola, where you're usually picked up by Santo Domingo and then San Juan. In a radar environment, "direct to's" are common. However, over the Caribbean Sea there is no radar coverage . Therefore to ensure adequate traffic separation, aircraft stick to the airways and periodically report their position, altitude, mach number and estimates for the next fix.
It is common to be in and out of radar coverage through much of Central and South America. Hopefully satellite based radar will eventually allow us to fly direct anywhere in the world.
EDIT: Cherokee, I clear customs at Opa Locka routinely
Please, dont take any advice from ANYONE online telling you what airplane routes to fly.
99.9999% of people are not pilots, and never have and never will fly a plane in their life.
ask an airtraffic controller instead, or another experience pilots.
From what i hear, air traffic controllers are the one's that give clearance to which routes can be flown.
and if you do fly a route, that another faster plane is flying, you will end up getting too close, and could possibly cause an accident, like what happened to me earlier this year on a flight from boston to atlanta.
it wasn't on the news, but a plane flew directly beneath us, no more than 300 yards away. (it sounds like a good distance, but when you see another 747, cross paths beneath you , its pretty scary.
When you have thousand of plane at the same time and they are all going in random direction, it is impossible to keep them from crashing into each other.
But if planes follow general "corrodors" then it is much easier for air traffic to keep them apart (and organized).
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But I used to fly small private plane and were were mostly free to fly direct line of sight paths (unless there were restricted air space).
Small planes are too slow to go miles off course and make it worth flying.
Good Luck.
I think you have an assigned flight path. It uses different airways.
In short, no you cannot