Thanks for the response Ryan, however in the video, the controller clears the aircraft before they call with any sort of emergency. It's immediately after contacting him he is cleared for a high speed climb.

Saw it on a training video online and noticed it when listening to transmissions IRL, high speed climb.. It's a commonplace term now for heavies IRL as they're stall speeds are so high when heavy. The specific video I am referring to is explaining the Delta fuel dump over LA and they get up to nearly 370 knots at 7000. If anyone is interested, this is the video and time when SoCal automatically approves hsc: https://youtu.be/JzKny78Eylg?t=148.
When requesting on Vatsim (I have tried twice so far), one time I was approved, saying it was a federal limitation, and the other one gave me a restriction of 270 knots which is hardly high speed. So is this not something we're simulating on Vatsim?

Thanks for your post. You may be talking about an experience you encountered with me on UNICOM (or just may be very similar with being at DCA and the same runways). As multiple people have said, lots of of strive for realism so we just attempt to follow what the real world is doing as much as possible, even if that means we don't get to have as cool of an approach or more importantly a headwind contrary to a tailwind. It's definitely your job to communicate with the other pilots on your plans. No one is going to force you to land on a certain runway unless you're at risk of colliding with them, and usually I go by the rule that the airborne planes are more important. As the other person said, if you want to check (which is what I do every flight), just pull up FlightRadar24 and spend a few seconds looking at the runway in use (and you can then prove to others that is the reason you are landing that runway and not a runway that is possibly favoring the wind )

Thank you, both of you. I'll keep this in mind. Which LOA would you follow if clearing across multiple ARTCCs, for example, the example I used cut directly through the middle of Salt Lake enroute control, therefore which LOA would be used?

I have a quick question over the power CTR controllers have over their aircraft. I know I've read CTR controllers can clear aircraft direct a waypoint in their airspace, and their airspace only, but I've also seen/heard IRL and on Vatsim controllers clearing aircraft direct the waypoint before their arrival, sometimes half-way across the US! They just insert (this is from a flight I was doing from SEA-MSP) something like "SEA072077 (waypoint)" to notify any future controllers they've cleared them direct that waypoint, for example UFFDA. This is about a 1000 NM shortcut. So, just to clear my confusion, what can CTR controllers do and what not? If they see it's basically a direct flight with a few waypoints in between, and the pilots wants it, do they have the clearance to do that?
Thanks!

Matthew Simmons