Hi all, just read this interesting tidbit about waypoint names in the SF Bay Area… any other waypoint names that you’ve come across that pay tribute to the local area?
"An interesting wrinkle unique to SFO’s procedures is the inclusion of wine varietal and cultural references. San Francisco is about 50 miles south of some of the most acclaimed wine regions in the US, such as Napa, Santa Rosa, and Sonoma. In deference to this, a few arrivals and departures have waypoint names that reflect the region. For example, the BDEGA 4 and STLER 4 arrivals have waypoints named:
MLBEC (read aloud as Malbec)
MRRLO (Merlot)
CBRNA (Cabernet)
MSCAT (Moscat[o]
The procedures have other wine references, such as LEGSS and CORKK.
In addition to the wine references, other procedures feature surf references in homage to the multiple surf breaks around the San Francisco area. Pilots arriving at SFO from Southern Californian flight corridors are often given clearance to descend via the SERFR 4 or WWAVS 2 arrivals. The waypoint names on these procedures include:
WWAVS
STOKD
NRRLI
EPICK
WPOUT.
On another (musical) note, a few more procedures have waypoint names that pay tribute to San Francisco musicians. The SNTNA 2 departure is named after guitarist Carlos Santana, who grew up and formed his band in San Francisco. The departure also has the waypoints GRTFUL and DEDHD in recognition of the band The Grateful Dead, which formed in Palo Alto, just a few miles south of SFO."
This is a VERY common practice across the country. EWR has “HOWYA” and “DOOIN”, MCI has “SPICY”, “BARBQ” and “RIBBS”, etc etc etc. One of my favs was back in the day CLE had a “LEBRN” fix on an arrival. After Mr James left CLE for MIA the controllers refused to say “Lebron” and came up with different pronunciations of the fix. Pretty funny!
You’ll find that flying into airports the fixes name around there have some meaning to the area. For example, Charlotte’s JONZE5 ARRIVAL is in honor of the controller from the Hudson River landing:
And I just realized Charlotte updated some charts and I lost all my notes that I previous highlighted on my charts. Guess I have to go back and draw them on.
Since Charlotte is my hometown I can comment on some of the arrivals:
BANKR: Banker (Charlotte is the 2nd largest banking city behind NYC)
NASCR: Nascar (Also home of Race City USA aka Mooresville, the home of Nascar and dozens of race teams)
As mentioned by the others, you’ll find a lot of fixes are named after geographic items, regional specialities, or even people.
The ESTRR 5 Departure from CLT has the IPTAY transition near Clemson, which is the name of the university’s athletic booster program: “I pay ten a year”. Austin has fixes named after Star Wars: VADRR SSOLO LUUKE XWING.
One of my favorites is the SEEVR arrival into DFW has fixes in reference to a former Fort Worth center controller who would switch people to regional approach late:
PLEZE
CHMLI
JUSST
SWTCH
THEMM
DCA has fixes on the FRDMM arrival in respect of 9/11 and our service members.
