Just thought I'd ask if anyone has a problem with departure vectoring you to the airway after takeoff. After I takeoff if I don't find the airway myself I'm either getting scolded or just out of luck...

I have had no problems. If you pick your first waypoint within 30 nm from departing RC expects you to follow your plan and find your way after the intial takeoff heading. If your first waypoint is outside this radious you will get vectored to eventually line you up with an approximate intercept course. You will be told to resume your own nav and are expected to do it after following ATC instructions.If you are using the FMS from PMDG just use heading select to get to that first point. Your flight plan should be set up or imported into it (requires a compatible planner such as FSBuild2.x of FSNav (I believe). You can optionally enter the waypoints and routes into the FMS yourself if you wish, but just doing it once with one of those applications makes it handier to get both formats (.pln and .rte) at once.

Thanks Ron but that doesn't make since. No international airport is going to let departure aircraft randomly fly their own intercept courses to their first waypoint. Everything in Class Bravo airspace is closely monitored and controlled...

I was thinking about that today.I wish that 30 mile thingi was a setting that we could adjust.I fly mostly GA aircrafts.. 30 miles is a little far for me. I was also expecting my clearences to read... fly rwy hdg to 3000, E 6000 in 10. something like that. I want to be vectored no matter if I am flying a DP. I wonder what the rationale was for RC to do that.

I posted this same issue over on the Radar Contact forum (didn't know they had one here). You raise a great point Manny...

they aren'ttower tells you where to fly, or if you filed a DP, then you're expected to fly the DP, since you filed it.tower will tell you fly runway heading, that's an easy one. no ai in the area, no departure proceduretower tells you to fly a heading, probably because of ai in the area, and no DP filedor tower tells you nothing, which means you filed a DP, and he expects you to fly it.you are watchdog-ed on all 3 scenariosjd

No problem here, I flew a bunch of flights yesterday, and all vectoring after takeoff was spot on......

As JD answered if you filed a waypoint within that 30 nm you are expected to fly your filed path to it as the takeoff clearance states. This does not mean you are not monitored. It means your requested path fits in with the overall scheme and does not interfere with other aircraft.Remember that RC is not just for the larger airports but any airport with IFR departure approval. You may not come into the range of departure radar immediately until at altitude above terrain. The aircraft may be a small GA that will join an airway or DP route not necessarily at its inception such as those feeder airports in suburban areas. So it is like pre-radar days of position reports. You take-off, fly your as filed departure because you have stated you know how to get where you need to be in a timely fashion.