Narrative:

I was working sector 14/90 combined. I had a flight flying to mem via fam..arg.GQE3.mem. This routing is required LOA routing between ZKC and ZME. I noticed the aircraft starting turning slightly left immediately after passing the fam VORTAC. I asked the pilot to verify his route was in fact what I had shown to be fam..arg.GQE3.mem; and he agreed. I told the pilot he was at least 5 degrees left of course. He responded by telling me he was dialed in and in fact direct arg. I quickly said he was not and needed to check once again. Separation was never lost with other aircraft and the point out was made in a timely manner. This may be a possible pilot deviation; however; I also think it is a problem with the published gqe star to mem. The plate shows a radial from fam to rgill and not a radial to arg. Pilots frequently assume this is the radial to arg; when it is clearly not. Instead of making a right turn to arg; the planes are turning slightly left to rgill. I have seen this happen several times and it causes the sector 14 controller to be extra vigilant because this causes a point out to tings sector M25 in ZME. If a controller is not monitoring the pilots route of flight after fam; they will violate tings if no point out is made. Also; the pilots should be made aware of this on the published star because it seems to me they think they are flying it correctly and clearly they are not. Maybe the plate could be changed to show a radial to arg from fam since these aircraft are /west and need to use the radials while navigating. Later I heard the sec 14 controller ask the pilot if he was direct arg; I went over to the sector to see if it was the same issue I saw the day before. It was absolutely the same issue. I again pointed out the problem to the supervisor.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZKC controller described a near airspace infraction when traffic on the Gilmore STAR failed to fly from FAM direct to ARG as cleared; reporter claiming chart depiction causes confusion regarding correct routing.

Narrative: I was working sector 14/90 combined. I had a flight flying to MEM via FAM..ARG.GQE3.MEM. This routing is required LOA routing between ZKC and ZME. I noticed the aircraft starting turning slightly left immediately after passing the FAM VORTAC. I asked the pilot to verify his route was in fact what I had shown to be FAM..ARG.GQE3.MEM; and he agreed. I told the pilot he was at least 5 degrees left of course. He responded by telling me he was dialed in and in fact direct ARG. I quickly said he was not and needed to check once again. Separation was never lost with other aircraft and the point out was made in a timely manner. This may be a possible pilot deviation; however; I also think it is a problem with the published GQE star to MEM. The plate shows a radial from FAM to RGILL and not a radial to ARG. Pilots frequently assume this is the radial to ARG; when it is clearly not. Instead of making a right turn to ARG; the planes are turning slightly left to RGILL. I have seen this happen several times and it causes the sector 14 controller to be extra vigilant because this causes a point out to TINGS sector M25 in ZME. If a controller is not monitoring the pilots route of flight after FAM; they will violate TINGS if no point out is made. Also; the pilots should be made aware of this on the published star because it seems to me they think they are flying it correctly and clearly they are not. Maybe the plate could be changed to show a radial to ARG from FAM since these aircraft are /W and need to use the radials while navigating. Later I heard the sec 14 controller ask the pilot if he was direct ARG; I went over to the sector to see if it was the same issue I saw the day before. It was absolutely the same issue. I again pointed out the problem to the supervisor.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.