Light Transport; Low Wing; 2 Turbojet Eng
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 55; Flight Crew Total 7000; Flight Crew Type 4500
Situational Awareness; Confusion; Human-Machine Interface
Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance; Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Aircraft; Chart Or Publication
We have flown this route many times and the route clearance is always a series of intersections (ACITO-ADELL-ARLYN-AGNUS-.....). We have this route stored in our FMS database. Most times we are cleared direct to our destination prior to reaching ADELL Intersection. On the flight above we were not cleared direct and made the turn from ADELL to ARLYN. A few moments later Chicago Center asked us to fly a 190 heading for the climb. He then asked what fix we were navigation to. We responded ARLIN. He then informed us that our heading was not correct for ARLYN. It did not take us long to realize that ARLYN was misspelled in our stored flight plan database. We understand that there are thousands of intersections and that it is difficult to make all intersection names unique. There are several intersections with the name ARLYN spelled in different ways. The difference in heading between ARLYN and ARLIN from our position was 56 degrees. Another ARLEN was 17 degrees off our course. This error could have been avoided if a published SID existed for this airport. Having the SID in the database would prevent the misspelling of intersection names.
[Narrative #2 contained no additional information.]
A Corporate aircraft's FMS had a stored route through ZAU airspace with an intersection named ARLYN instead of ARLIN which caused ATC to question the aircraft's routing.