Another funny problem!

Had a disasterous flight, a little longer than anticipated, endend in a large hole in the ground. But makes an interesting story...

I filed a plan from Oakland (KTPK) to Atkinson (KPTS), VOR to VOR, under IFR and took off following the controllers instructions ... but he kept taking me WAY west of the route shown on the GPS.

(It's worth noting here that the controller kept passing me from pillar to post - for example "Please tune to Denver Approach..." so I did. Then he'd say "Please tune to Denver Approach..." which I did. This goes on for maybe a couple of dozen times until I cross into someone else's airspace upon which it turns from "Denver" to something else).

Anyway... I decided to follow his direction instructions to the letter as he winged whenever I tried to turn back to the GPS course - regardless that I knew where I was going and he didn't!!!!

At this point I was intrigued by the plot to get me lost so decided to see what would happen. I eventually ended up 971 miles to the west of where I wanted to be with only about 10 mins of fuel remaining so called a 'virtual emergency' and cancelled the IFR. I tuned my GPS to the nearest airport and began a turn. As soon as I turned my airspeed dropped like I'd deployed a parachute and so I dropped like a stone and of course hit the ground.

Game over man!!!

Glitch the size of Canada there I think.


D.

Your problem is very interesting, but there is a lot of mess in your descroption.

1. I personally prefer not to comply with the departure controller's instructions. After takeoff I always direct myself to the GPS course despite the inaccuracy of the controller's instructions, and I never get an IFR cancelation. My guess is that you could have filed the WRONG flight plan. Your description just doesn't make any sense...
2. It is normal to be trasferred from one controller to another who have the same qualification... (Chicago Approach and Chicago Approach). Chicago approach is not only one single controller. Every one of them needs to take care of several aircrafts, but not in the entire area!
3. 971 miles off the airport??? Which airplane is this? Did you engage the autopilot? I can think of only one reason for your crash: corrupted use of the autopilot.

I would not travel 971 miles off course, as soon as ATC gave you a wrong direction with no recovery of taking you back on course to your selected airport you shound have reprogrammed a new direct flight plan (using the airport ident code) into you gps to get you back on course.

A while back I planned an IFR flight from KGON (Groton CT) to KBDL (Hartford CT) (should have been a short flight with a course of about 330 direct). ATC sent me west along the Connecticut shore until I lined up on the localizer course inbound for the ILS 6 approach. Sounds ok but I was over 50 miles away when they turned me inbound to final! ATC dropped me down from 4000' to 1800' for a very long "final". I stuck with it just to see how stupid the AI ATC was. Maybe they were taking you around to a VERY extended final!

You have several issues here:
1) ATC sending you the wrong way. I have experienced this in both VFR and IFR flight. I do not know what causes it, but it happens. But, there will be times ATC will take you a little off the GPS track because ATC is guiding you basically by waypoints that GPS might not use. But, there are glitches that send you off to the wrong spot. ATC recently sent me 180-degrees when I had filed a IFR flight plan from KMEM to KPIE (Memphis to St. Petersburg, FL) It never routed me according to the flight plan. In fact, it never routed me other than 180-degrees. Gotta be a glitch because we would have kept going south forever. I ran the route just to be sure it was a glitch and that somwhere along the route it would send me to KPIE. It didn't. Glitch.

2) Being handed off to several controllers within the same control area is very normal and realistic. Each controller supervises a specific geographical area. So as you travel you will encounter different controllers controlling different and distinct airspace within the same center.

Yeh I know I should have done that, but I wanted to see what happened.


D.