Ahhhh Winstun finally arrives. Took him longer than usual this time. The man who believes the big sky theory is a scientific fact we should base our whole air traffic system around.
I agree with Spodman, and many of the others that there are times where the dogleg serves a purpose ie. stops nose to nose situations with aircraft on climb and descent. Winstun may say why not use vectors, but he forgets that we as controllers should always work with the worst case scenario in the back of our mind. Three bad scenarios that could happen after having given direct tracking with the backup that you'll radar vector them if need be later.
1. RADIO FAILURE, if the guy had taken that dogleg and was now 10 NM laterally clear of the inbound no problem, but now he's nose to nose and you have no way of contacting him...oops.
2. LEVEL BUST, again if laterally clear right now, he'd get a slap on the wrist and everyone would go home happy, now you hope his TCAS is working.
3. Emergency Descent, you are busy enough with the emergency without having to try and vector the guy who is nose to nose due to the direct tracking, that is if you have time to even consider that.
When you go out into the big bad world of Aviation, you soon realise that if the Americans do something a certain way, then find a different way to do it. Their pilots are a disgrace, they never listen out, they never readback clearances and then help themselves to a track shortened route. I've had two level busts here, and both were yanks. Free flight as the Americans do, you gotta be kidding.
I am not a fan of a blanket NO DIRECT TRACKING directive, as it takes away a tool that a controller may use to their and also the aircrafts advantage. The problem is the rule comes in cos some people go too far (eg. 100NM Perth dct to CANTY, through 1000's of NM's of non radar airspace...scary) and management works on the lowest common denominator. Management and/or fellow controllers needs to sort out these rogue controllers rather than bringing out restrictions that leave the rest of the controllers hamstrung.