Choosing a STAR

[tobbe490]

Hallo,

 

I have two questions:

 

1. If an airport only have one runway why is this numbered for example 34R (instead of 01R)?

2. When you are in the air and get the information on which runway you should land on, how do you choose which STAR you should use?

 

[crisk73]

1. Runways are numbered according to their direction, in detail the rwy magnetic bearing or QFU. Divide mag heading by 10 round it to the nearest whole number and you'll get the rwy number. If you have only one runway there's no need of R or L designation.

2. STARs are only assigned by ATC according to your last waypoint in the FP AND to the runway in use due to wind direction & speed AND to inbound/outbound traffic around the airport.

Edited April 13, 2015 by crisk73

[tobbe490]

Thank you for your reply!

 

Question no. 2: In real life - I understand, but how do I do in X-plane 10? 

[nascar99]

Thank you for your reply!

 

Question no. 2: In real life - I understand, but how do I do in X-plane 10? 

 

If you are not using VATSIM or any other ATC, you should choose the STAR that corresponds with your final waypoint.

[eMko]

Even if you are online, you should plan for SIDs which end with your first waypoint and STARs which begin with your last waypoint.

 

Their purpose is to take you from airport to airway system and back. If there is no SID/STAR connecting your airport to your desired first/last waypoint, then you have to choose a different waypoint. Of course there are places where SID or STAR ends or begins in the middle of nowhere - then you should choose the one where you have the shortest DCT path to your first/last desired waypoint and ask ATC for clearance up to your waypoint, not just only for SID (same on the other way).

 

If you have a SID which barfs you out to north and you want to go to south, you would probably have a clearance for SID and then "expect vectors". What would you do during a COMMFAIL? Overfly the airport through a busy TMA? There are countries where TMAs are Class A airspace (e.g. the country around EGLL), controllers wouldn't be hapy if they had to clean all that airpsace for you .

 

In some countries, there is usually only one SID/STAR connecting airport to a waypoint (I believe that this is true in Germany, where controllers prefer you to write the name of the SID/STAR to the route of your flightplan, at least on IVAO). Then you know in advance which SID/STAR you would get. In other countries there are multiple SIDs/STARs for airport-waypoint combination, usually one per runway. Then you have more to choose, depending on active runway - but if you know the winds (or get the METAR), you probably know the active runway and can predict the SID/STAR which you would get from ATC (or from yourself when either you or the ATC is offline).

Edited April 13, 2015 by eMko