How do I plan a STAR?

[demanmetdeneus]

Hello everybody,

There is something I just do not get about planning my flights. Here is a situation I got myself into this evening:

I planned a short flight from Aarhus (Denmark) to Oslo (Norway). Here it is: EKAH RADIS UP615 TOR ENGM.

And this is how I came up with it:

1. Aarhus has no SID so I chose to fly direct from the airport to the nearest Waypoint on the airway I wanted to follow. (RADIS)

2. From there I followed an airway (UP615) that led me to a point from which I could enter an appropriate STAR for ENGM. (TOR)

3. Now I have to pick a STAR and that is where my problem begins. For ENGM there are different STARs for different runways. So I assumed that since the runway in use is dependent on the direction of the wind you don't know what STAR you will have to use until you hear from ATIS or ATC what the active runway is. So I decided not to choose the STAR. I printed out the two possible STARs for my flight and decided to tune into ATIS or ATC upon arriving at TOR.

5. But at TOR of course I was still way out of reach of ENGM ATIS or ATC. So I did not know what STAR to pick...

Where did I go wrong? How does this work in real life?

Thanks in advance,

Peter

[Goran_M]

There could be different rules for different regions, but from what I remember, if there are no waypoints around the airport, you follow runway heading for a pre determined distance and then once it is safe to turn, you make a turn on the crosswind leg as allowed by the traffic pattern or you can keep going straight or turn away from the circuit pattern of the airport towards the nearest waypoint/VOR/NDB and track that heading. 

[Hansie]

Peter,

I am not, by any standard, an authority in this area. But I suggest you plan your route with one of the free online planners: I personally use Routefinder (http://rfinder.asalink.net/free/autoroute_rtx.php) which has never let me down yet...

For your flight, it returns a route "EKAH DCT TUKTU UM852 GIXUN UL997 SORPI STAR ENGM", and both STARS for ENGM have a connection at SORPI, which is about 50 nm from ENGM. That should be close enough.

I have not tried to fly this route, but you might look at it and see if it fits your requirements.

Have a nice flight!

Hans