Definition
A flight path along which an aircraft is navigated by air traffic control using radar vectors and monitoring, rather than by published airways or pilot navigation between fixes. The route is defined and adjusted by the controller in real time based on traffic, weather, and airspace requirements.
Plain English
A path you fly because the controller is watching you on radar and telling you which way to go, instead of you following a charted airway from one waypoint to the next.
Context Anchor
You may encounter this term in instrument flying, departure and arrival instructions, or air traffic control clearances when a controller is guiding your route directly.
Derivation
Radar comes from the World War II acronym RAdio Detection And Ranging — using radio waves to find and track objects. A radar route is therefore a route flown under that tracking, with the controller doing the navigating.
Why Pilots Care
It allows more direct routing and efficient traffic handling under positive radar control.
Intuition Check
A Radar Route is not just any route shown on a radar screen. It means air traffic control is actively guiding the aircraft’s path using radar information.
Example Sentence 1
Center placed us on a radar route around the convective weather and said they'd return us to the filed flight plan once we were past the cells.
Example Sentence 2
While on the radar route the controller issued a heading change to avoid traffic.