Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Flight Instructor
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 130; Flight Crew Total 1000; Flight Crew Type 700
Other / Unknown; Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance
Airport; Human Factors; Procedure
Cleared to takeoff VRB; climb maintain 2000; heading 090??. We climbed out as directed. During our climb; ATC allowed us to climb a few miles off shore at a low altitude. To us; this put us beyond our power off gliding distance to the shore. We then tried to contact tower and request a better heading towards the shore and advise him that we were not equipped to be this far out. He ignored our request and in fact gave us a heading of 100??. This heading put us even further off shore. He then notified us that we were in violation and gave us a number to call Miami Center upon landing. After we complied with his new instructions; now even further beyond what I was comfortable with; approach then gave us a heading of 180?? and an altitude of 4;000. I then made one final attempt to request a better heading to bring us closer to shore; which was denied. Upon that request; the controller informed us that we were well within gliding distance to the shore. The problem with this is the shore was a crowded beach. This was not a suitable landing point. So; although he may have believed we were within gliding distance of the land; we were not within gliding distance of a suitable landing point that would guarantee no harm to any civilian on the ground. This often is the departure procedure out of this airport and I always have to request a different vector; which is often denied until I am well out of my range of gliding distance to a suitable landing spot. A Cessna should not be multiple miles off shore without the proper flotation equipment. I was trying to follow one regulation and it led to the violation of another. As the final authority to the safety of the flight; I believed I was doing the right thing. This departure procedure should be tailored to different category of aircraft. Single engine aircraft have no business being vectored multiple miles out over the Atlantic Ocean without the proper equipment.
A C172 Flight Instructor laments being vectored too far off shore by VRB tower without over water equipment. The reporter does not see a crowded public beach as a suitable landing point but ATC does not see it this way.